Elderly urged to tell family where they want to die

ELDERLY people should discuss with their loved ones whether they want to be treated in hospital if they contract coronavirus, an NHS doctor has said.

Dr Rachel Clarke, a palliative care specialist, warned that some patients were spending their final moments alone in busy intensive care units, despite having no hope of survival.

The Oxford-based clinician advised families to have an “advanced planning” conversation before infection.

She told Today on BBC Radio 4: “The disease can take you over in a matter of hours. If you are very elderly and have lots of underlying diseases it may never be appropriate for you to be put on a ventilator and that means the risk… is that you are rushed into an environment where nobody you know and love is and, if you had the conversation in advance, you may have concluded you would rather have been at home.”

Dr Clarke spoke on the day the official UK death toll from coronavirus reached 759. Data from Imperial College London show a 9 per cent mortality rate among the over-80s, with a 5 per cent rate among those aged 70 to 79.

Figures also show a higher than expected proportion of patients ill enough to require hospital treatment end up on ventilators in intensive care. Because of infection control, loved ones of such patients are usually forbidden from being with them. Stories have emerged of staff having to pass on final messages from family members.

Dr Clarke, an author on compassionate dying, said Skype and Whatsapp on tablets and smartphones were being used to say goodbye. “It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “Although physical symptoms such as pain are very important and we have wonderful drugs to manage those, so too are the psychological aspects of facing the end of one’s life.

“Patients will often be frightened and lonely but one of the most important medicines in palliative care is not morphine but the sheer value of another human presence.”

The warning came as figures suggested two thirds of the elderly were struggling to get food and essential goods. Deborah Alsina, of Independent Age, said: “It’s incumbent upon all of us to do what we can.”