I was happy to read about the positive experience that the family of Barbara DeWaters had with hospice care (“The Challenge of Our Age: Someone to watch over the journey’s end,” Oct. 19). Our experience was the opposite.

Our 85-year-old mother, ill with cancer, was being home visited by a hospice nurse when it was decided that Mom should spend a few days at the hospice center to both provide a bit of relief to our caretaker sister and to recalibrate her pain medicine.

Alert and funny as ever when the ambulance came to transport her to the hospice, Mom entered the facility with all of us expecting she would return home in a few days. Instead, within 30 hours she had lost consciousness, never to be regained.

Without our approval, Mom’s pain medication had been sharply increased.

We then learned, after the fact, and again without our involvement or permission, that intravenous hydration and nutrients were being withheld, ensuring that our mother’s wishes to die at home, and to not be so drugged as to lose awareness, would not be honored.

I was told by a funeral director, someone who has a doctorate in pharmacology, and a national expert on hospice, that our family’s experience was not uncommon.

While I support the concept of hospice, I would caution families to be clear about who has the final word in meeting the final wishes of the patient: family or hospice staff.

Michael Petit

Ocean Park

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