It’s inhumane to let hospital patients die alone

My mom passed away Nov. 27. One could say it was COVID -19-related. She was terrified to go to the doctor this past last year, or even leave the house. She was isolated and her health problems were amplified to the point where she went emergently to the hospital Oct. 25. She never came home.

I’m her daughter, so I am beating myself up on how I could have cared for her better.

Despite having a 2-year-old and a full-time job, I could have been more on top of her preventive care, and delved more into why she was losing weight.

Halfway through her hospital stay, we fell victim to COVID -19 precautions. My father or I visited her for our onevisitor-per-day allotment between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. We thought that was bad — until visitation was shut off altogether.

My mother became extremely disoriented. She hadn’t seen anyone or anything familiar for the better part of a month. She had ICU psychosis. They moved her to a medical unit. She struggled to breathe on her own. We were told she just needed more time and was doing well. Two days out of ICU, alone in a hospital room, with no family by her side, she died.

When my cat died in 2019, I was able to hold her, caress her, tell her how much I loved her. My cat had a better death experience than my mother. That is not right. It is inhumane.

We need better systems in place to allow families to see or at least virtually reach their loved ones (technology companies can help with this). We need to give nurses support in making this technology work or have dedicated staff to be the patient/family liaison so nurses don’t have to be telecommunications wizards in addition to doing patient care. We need those on the inside to answer the phone — every time — and we need to be honest and tell families when their loved one doesn’t just need more time, and when they won’t improve, so that they can legally take advantage of the end-of-life visitation rules. Someone needs to be watching this and making sure that families that can come in are called in time.

We can die better.