There are many ethical issues that are unique to providing Hospice care. Recent health care efforts aimed at supporting individuals facing advanced illness are marked by debate over the right to die and assisted suicide. Palliative Sedation therapy to unconsciousness is considered to be controversial as unconsciousness is the intended goal of sedation rather than a side effect. Medications are increased rapidly over minutes and hours to achieve unconsciousness and left at that level until death occurs. PSU is usually administered when dying patient finds severe physical symptoms intolerable despite palliative care, for example, in the case of severe bleeding or inability to swallow secretions. Some have a problem with PSU and believe that the
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This article discusses the reality of terminal illness, and the ethical roll of Hospice Care. The woman in the article was supposed to be a health care proxy for two different family members at different times, but she didn’t have the required paperwork to show that she was in charge of decision making. Nobody seemed to care and didn’t even ask for proof before giving her private information about the patients, and allowing her to make decisions regarding her sister’s end of life issues. Anyone who hadn’t met her simply asked if she was a family member. This was clearly a hipaa violation. The author discovered through her experiences that even though everyone should have advanced directives, nobody ever asked to see them, and even if people do have them, they don’t usually bring them to the hospital anyway. She did eventually obtain the documents, however, not once did anyone ask to see them. The author stated that she was grateful to Hospice for their tremendous support and counsel, and for giving her sister a peaceful death. No other part of the health care system performs this service. She found that Hospice may need to make some changes and improvements, but she doesn’t know what the outcome would have been without them, and she feels nothing but
This article discusses the reality of terminal illness, and the ethical roll of Hospice Care. The woman in the article was supposed to be a health care proxy for two different family members at different times, but she didn’t have the required paperwork to show that she was in charge of decision making. Nobody seemed to care and didn’t even ask for proof before giving her private information about the patients, and allowing her to make decisions regarding her sister’s end of life issues. Anyone who hadn’t met her simply asked if she was a family member. This was clearly a hipaa violation. The author discovered through her experiences that even though everyone should have advanced directives, nobody ever asked to see them, and even if people do have them, they don’t usually bring them to the hospital anyway. She did eventually obtain the documents, however, not once did anyone ask to see them. The author stated that she was grateful to Hospice for their tremendous support and counsel, and for giving her sister a peaceful death. No other part of the health care system performs this service. She found that Hospice may need to make some changes and improvements, but she doesn’t know what the outcome would have been without them, and she feels nothing but