A New Way

People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system’s expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives.

This quote from an article in The New Yorker eloquently describes the struggle currently going on in our health care system. Although many hold on to expensive and uncomfortable medical care far after its usefulness has passed, piling more stress on themselves and their families in the process, hospice care has repeatedly been proven to address the real concerns of dying patients.