Quotes About End-of-life

Working with the dying is like being a midwife for this great rite of passage of death. Just as a midwife helps a being take their first breath, you help a being take their last breath.

If one does die taking these drugs, the death is likely to be very peaceful. Morphia is, after all, the goddess of dreams.

I used to work as a volunteer in a hospice, but I don't have any nursing skills or cooking skills or anything, so I was what they call an escort. I would take people to the support groups every night, and I would have to sit sort of on the sidelines so I could take them back to hospice at the end of the meeting.

No one deserves to die alone. No matter who you are, you deserve to have someone by your side. And as a volunteer with hospice, we provide that love, comfort, and respect.

We would communicate a far more compassionate message to those who are terminally ill and dying—and to be honest, even to those for whom dying is a long way off—if we focused our energies on helping people die right. To die right. That's what it's all about. Unfortunately, euthanasia has become a popular topic because people are led to believe that death by suicide or homicide is more dignified than dying naturally.

Dialysis does not make patients well. It simply postpones their deaths.

Being in the hospice didn't work out exactly the way I had expected. By all rights, I should have finished my time here in mid-March 2006 - at least, that's when Medicare stopped paying.

My father was in terrible pain towards the end because of his bed sores, and he did go into hospice, and I think that was better in some ways. You know, I think his death was peaceful, and it was all right. He was just in terrible pain.

People want the right to die at a time of their own choosing. Too many families have watched helplessly as a relative dies slowly, longing for death.

It's fashionable to speak about vulnerable populations in medicine and public policy, but it's harder to find a more vulnerable population than those who are dying.

It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has helped us to live longer and healthier lives, to help us die peacefully among our loved ones in our own home without a long stay in God's waiting room.

First of all, do any of you here think it's a crime to help a suffering human end his agony? Any of you think it is? Say so right now. Well, then, what are we doing here?

Americans tend to endorse the use of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia when the question is abstract and hypothetical.

By establishing a social policy that keeps physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia illegal but recognizes exceptions, we would adopt the correct moral view: the onus of proving that everything had been tried and that the motivation and rationale were convincing would rest on those who wanted to end a life.

I don't persuade to suicide.

They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.

The dog did not move as the needle was inserted, and, as the barbiturate began to flow into the vein, the anxious expression left his face and the muscles began to relax. By the time the injection was finished, the breathing had stopped.

I attended the bedside of a friend who was dying in a Dublin hospital. She lived her last hours in a public ward with a television blaring out a football match, all but drowning our final conversation.

I suppose, if helping a patient die is killing, I suppose I'm a killer.

If your pet is dying in pain, you will be condemned for cruelty if you do not summon the vet to give him a general anaesthetic from which he will not come round. But if your doctor performs exactly the same merciful service for you when you are dying in pain, he runs the risk of being prosecuted for murder.

My parents were extremely reluctant. When my father was clearly dying, my mother refused to acknowledge it.

Intruding upon a dimension rightfully ours, modern medicine robs us of the dignity of what people in the past regarded as most precious: that final moment of death.

My ultimate aim is to make euthanasia a positive experience.

He's also able to accept death. He's not happy about it, but he's perfectly calm. When I stop all this treatment, it will be because it's time to stop.