As described in heartwarming fashion in this short story, proper palliative care involves knowing when to fold: to recognize impending, un-preventable death and informing the family early enough for the patient to say their farewells in a dignified manner. Not only would proper conversations about death help reduce healthcare costs of treating the sick (over 80% of your total lifetime's healthcare costs occur during your last 6 months of life), they would also help improve the quality of palliative care for the patient and ease the fear/confusion/guilt on the part of the family. Perhaps Canada should be training and re-training its doctors to see death as acceptable outcome of treatment for many patients, instead of ordering unnecessary, costly, and humiliating tests that do nothing but prolong patient suffering.
From Yan Y
From Yan Y
No comments:
Post a Comment