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it's a tough one, yeah, my granddad was eventually sent to the hospice, but not that much different from the hospital really.
Generally, docs will always treat i think, the goal is usually focused on keeping the patient alive, of course, the question of 'is this the best thing' is another case.
in some places in the EU, euthanasia is legal tho and people do travel there when they are suffering, there's a fair bit of debate around the subject, but as long as a person is mentally competent, they should have the choice generally i think
Yeah I don't really know what "in hospice" actually means nowadays. I think it used to mean "only palliative care", but I know personally of cases where people were in hospice for MONTHS and did actually continue to get all their medications, etc.
I've heard of unofficial groups at retirement homes who monitor each other, and make sure that the ambulance is NOT called, at a certain point. For instance, if you've decided you don't want to die in a hospital, and you have a stroke after the age of...I don't know, maybe 80 or so, then you want to make sure the ambulance is not called.
And that the person is just allowed to peacefully pass away, without his or her last hours/days/months being spent hooked to tubes in a hospital or nursing home. So, basically calling for hospice help instead of going to the hospital.
The number of people I've seen/heard about who got aggressive medical treatment after a stroke, and then plummeted downhill in terms of physical and mental health - huge. And then lived for another 2 to 6 years, not recognizing anyone, in diapers, etc. Horrible.
My mother has one of those bright pink sheets of paper with ambulance info taped up to her fridge. There's 3 options -
At the very least, towards the end of things, you could (hopefully) just do the last option. Then again, I've also heard nightmare stories of those documents not making it to the hospital with you, and then you get all the treatments you don't want.
After all, what are the incentives for the hospital? If treatments are covered by the government (which they are), their incentives are to treat aggressively.