Life’s last milestone: Why a “good death” matters

THE GLOBAL & MAIL | Online — 14 February 2014 — David McMaster was dying. What shocked his family was the way it happened. “We were robbed of the chance to say a proper goodbye,” says his daughter Susan. Mr McMaster, 80, had been in and out of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in 2010 with a series of complex circulatory and kidney problems. Eventually he also contracted C difficile, a hospital based-infection. After a week in the Intensive Care Unit on a breathing machine, doctors decided nothing more could be done; it was time to move him to “comfort care.” But the only available bed was on a general medicine ward with two other patients…read more

An article from Media Watch, compiled and annotated by Barry R. Ashpole (Ontario, Canada). More reports can be found at IPCRC.NET