Hospice care is overdue

It was a friendly place, a regular house in a quiet residential neighbourhood.

There were fresh-cut flowers on the dining room table, which was covered with the sort of tablecloth you might have found in your grandmother’s house.

The kitchen was well-stocked with dishes, pots and utensils.

You could cook a meal there.

There were nice curtains on the bedroom windows which overlooked a nice garden outside.

There were no wires or scrubs in this place and no institutional food.

There were nurses. And a doctor made the rounds each day to help with medication and pain management.

It wasn’t fancy.

But it was a nice place in which to spend time and a good place in which to die.

That was in 2003 in England, where dying in a hospice has been mainstream for the past 50 years.

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