Readers respond to an article on the urgent need for palliative care reform
Jane Turner is right that end-of‑life care needs fixing (MPs, you told us clearly that end-of-life care in the UK is broken. So now we need you to fix it, 28 September), and I argue that it needs fixing on two fronts at once. My husband, John, died in March aged 43 after nearly six years of bowel cancer treatment. He endured more than 70 rounds of chemotherapy, determined to watch our children grow up. He spent his last three months in a hospice, receiving the best palliative care on offer. Even so, he suffered terribly.
Some pain cannot be controlled quickly, and some suffering cannot be treated at all. One evening he screamed in agony while stranded in a bath, unable to move, for nearly an hour before relief took effect. As the cancer swelled his torso, he slowly suffocated – and no drug could prevent it. He was fully aware throughout, and told me repeatedly that he could not go on. In his last hours, I wore earplugs to bear the sound of his gasping.
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