Some interesting thoughts on life-expectancy, aging populations and end-of-life care in The Economist (Hat tip: Infectious Greed). It’s an issue that often requires the type of tough choices few are willing to make.
The trouble with health care in America, says Muriel Gillick, a geriatrics expert at Harvard Medical School, is that people want to believe that “there is always a fix.” She argues that the way Medicare is organised encourages too many interventions towards the end of life that may extend the patient’s lifespan only slightly, if at all, and can cause unnecessary suffering. It would often be better, she thinks, not to try so hard to eke out a few more hours or weeks but to concentrate on quality of life.
Of course, the above paragraph can be read an entirely different way (I mean, a way the author didn’t intend), i.e., people always think there’s a fix for the U.S. healthcare system in general — when, in fact, any “fix” requires hard choices and sacrifices.
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I know. When my Mom was sick last year, the nurse told us that “your mother is dying. Some people die in a car accident; others die over time.” I thought that that was the cruelest thing anyone could say at a time like that, but it helped to bring me back to reality: my Mother was dying and that I needed to start making arrangements. It took over seven months for her to finally pass away, but during that time we tried to make her life as comfortable as possible.