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Ideas of a “good-death” are frequently changing. In the 1800’s death was everpresent and intimate. Medical science was not nearly as evolved or precise as it is today, doctors knew all of their patient’s names, families and histories, and death was something that could almost never be prevented with medical intervention. But with the changes in medicine from 50 years ago until the present there are more and more ways to keep people alive, like chemotherapy, open heart surgery, ventilators, trauma centers and intensive care units. Doctors have begun to see death as a failure on their part, not as an inevitable part of the life cycle, but there are more problems with the system than that. The ever growing insurance industry now regulates the care we receive and what doctors we can receive it from. They even regulate the care we do not receive, because there are procedures that are deemed unecessary by an insurance industry that has no intimate knowledge of our individual lives. We are simply a case number, a policy number and a problem to be solved.
In recent years we have seen health care reform as an issue on almost every politicians electoral platform, but it seems that there is much being said and little actually being done to improve the care we receive. I believe that many aspects of our society need to change before adequate medical care with compassion is seen in the lives of every person in this country. There needs to be an overhaul of the system we are caught in, and as with any revolution, it will need to begin with us. But in order to effect this change, we need to educate ourselves on the issues that are involved. One such issue that I find particularly important is end of life care.
Care for the dying is something that affects all of us as members of families, as friends and as citizens of this country. There will come a time when each of us will face death on a very personal level. Over time, our society has gone from embracing death as a part of life to fearing the unknown ending of life's final chapter. Perhaps it is because of a loss of religion in our daily lives, or because the evolving art of medicine has taught us that death can be challenged and sometimes beaten for a time. In actuality, how we got to this point is not as important as what we need to do to fix it. During my research this year I have learned about many of the social concerns in end of life care, and many of the current options available. In this website you will find information and history on Hospice, the Right-to-Die movement, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, recent Supreme Court rulings on assisted-suicide and more. I hope to educate you on these important issues so that we can all make a difference.
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