Posted on 06/05/2006 6:58:32 PM PDT by neverdem
I volunteered at hospice, they could give as many drugs as they wanted to their patients.Depends on who is running the hospice. My Dad was in the only hospice available in his small town; it was in the hospital, and governed by the Doctors.
My mother passed in May, she had colon cancer. My mother was cared for at home. Hospice came in once a week to check on her and one of the things they were suppose to do is make sure she was pain free. The last four months of her life, we (father and I) were constantly requesting that her pain medicine be increased. Every time we asked, the hospice doctor had to be called.
At one point, a couple of weeks before she passed, the dumb doctor prescribed that she go from 15mg of methadone every 6 hours, to 20mg of methadone every 8 hours. Which, when you do the math, is exactly the same amount of methadone she was taking already, 60mg a day. Her 15mg dose wasn't lasting six hours. That was with oxycodone (20mg) every four hours. Somehow he expected a 20mg. dose to last her an even longer period (8 hours) and drop the oxycodone. The nurse said he was a "very conservative doctor". She said that she had to recommend what the doctor prescribed. I told her that I didn't agree with "their" doctor and that my mother was going to be free of pain, She said she could only say what the doctor recommended, but that she agreed, it didn't make any sense.
It was up to us, after she left we put her on the 20mg dose of methadone every 6 hours and took her off the oxycodone every 4 hours. It helped her tremendously and I don't regret "over ruling" the doctor, not one bit.
So, for the last month on my mother's life, I managed her pain. Her "hospice doctor" for some reason, had other things to "worry about" and they had nothing to do with whether mother was in pain or not. I still don't understand what the doctor was concerned about, it couldn't be that she would become addicted, she was dying. Maybe a lawsuit? Maybe an overdose? Maybe it was just because she was at home and he had only seen her once the entire 4 months she was bedridden? Maybe he was worried about what the government or a lawyer was going to do to him FIRST and what he should be doing for mother(the patient)LAST. Who knows?
One of the "benefits" of the War on Drugs.
Libby's paper outlines a particularly heartbreaking example of opiophobia from Time magazine a few years ago: A doctor tells the reporter about a young boy who's in the final stages of terminal cancer. He's in agonizing pain. His father refuses to let the physician give the kid the morphine that would prevent him from spending his last days in pain. Why? He told the doctor, "I don't want my son to die a drug addict."
That is a shame. I did not know there was such a big difference between places. The hospice center I was at never said "NO" to anyone.
The nurses asked people 10 times a day the level of pain they had. They just had the doctors increase their meds, and they did. No questions asked.
If fact, that was their policy. Whatever it takes. No one should suffer from lack of pain meds.
They knew people become immune after awhile and will need more and more to manage their pain.
Not giving adequate meds is in itself medical malpractice! What a horrible article. Those who have chronic pain know what it's like to try and manage on over the counter crap. It doesn't work.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.