Jonathan Kay: Canadian doctors explain why so many of us die badly

Last week, I wrote a column about the problem of “unwanted care,” a term used to describe the aggressive, invasive, often debilitating heath treatments that are imposed on dying patients — frequently when they are senile or unconscious — during their last weeks or months of life. The example I provided, courtesy of Atlantic magazine author Jonathan Rauch, was of a 94-year-old man dying from internal bleeding and kidney failure in a U.S. hospital. Instead of providing palliative care, the doctors tried to get authorization to remove the man’s colon and put him on dialysis. “We are spending billions on health care that no one wants, and which often has no real effect except suffering and indignity,” I argued.
I ended by asking Canadian doctors and nurses to share with me their thoughts about the issue. Many did. And, with the authors’ permission, I will quote from some of their responses in the space below.

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http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/07/11/jonathan-kay-canadian-doctors-explain-why-so-many-of-us-die-badly/