Handling pain of death with love and empathy

NOBODY wants to die. Well, at least, most of us don’t.

Among the relatively small numbers who do, and not surprisingly, there are many different attitudes towards that event. However, I think it is safe to say that the majority of people would prefer that it didn’t happen at least, not yet!

Indeed, they long for it to be otherwise, unless the pain of living is such that death can best be viewed as the last hope for relief from the suffering.

I first saw people dying when I was working as a totally untrained ward orderly at a very large general hospital near where I lived in the London suburbs. I was an undergraduate engineering student at that time. I was very fit and very strong, full of curiosity, delightfully naive and absolutely fascinated by the way patients coped with their pending deaths!

The wards I was required to work in were mostly populated by elderly intelligent male patients. They seemed surprisingly happy to share their thoughts with a big, strong bloke who knew nothing about their lives (or pending deaths) but was most happy to take them to the toilet or scratch their backs.

These two crucial lifesaving events usually seemed to coincide with each other and occur half way through your preparation of yet another fairly ordinary patient supper for the bloke in the next bed.

I recently attended the annual general meeting of the Toowoomba Hospice Association and once again heard the chairman and his team describing the works they do and the role the hospice plays in caring for people in the last days of their lives.

I say unequivocally that this hospice is a remarkable example of all that is best in the community. It cares brilliantly about ordinary and extraordinary people who are on journeys to whatever the world holds for them as they die. It cares about their relatives and understands what sadness will probably be caused by the deaths.

It seems to me that the hospice achieves this with a minimum of fuss, unconfused by personal hyperbole or exaggerated emotions. And it achieves this while still recognising the intensity of emotions that are an implicit of the passing of a relative or friend. We would be blessed if there was no need to have hospices, but that is never going to be a reality.

The real challenge is in the provision of efficient and effective processes that still leave room for care of the emotional inevitability present when people are dying. I believe that the Toowoomba Hospice achieves this in spades, both through the quality of its highly trained staff and the commitment of the many volunteer staff.

Those volunteers are the “outward and visible sign” that a decent community understands the pain of death but refuses to be beaten by it.

What I really admire about the hospice and its staff is their acceptance of the inevitability of death and the heartache that cannot be ignored. It must be handled with love and care of all concerned. It must be incredibly difficult to be confronted by the practical realities day in, day out, yet still get on with the job.

Each individual patient is uniquely important. Each relative or friend rightly expects that their needs and fears will receive empathetic care as the dying process moves to an enevitable conclusion.

I am personally not fussed about deeper “religious hopes”, but recognition of the “centrality of eternity” is critical to some mourners. This must always be recognised, respected and always be borne in mind.

A hospice is the half-way house between this world and the next. It requires the utmost care in initiating the inevitable administrative processes that facilitate the journey. Getting the job done empathetically is a great achievement.