Community Chat

[Yardlie]

My dad admitted himself to a home hospice program about a month ago due to his heart condition. He is at home, and the workers come here. He is his own power of attorney, because his mind is fine. The doctors verified this. He gets care 7 days a week from an aide, which is wonderful...and the nurses pop in twice a week and anytime we call. They told my dad when he entered the program that he could be considered a "full code" if he wanted to be (fully resuscitated). His feeling is that he wants his family make the decision about whether or not he should be resuscitated when the time comes. (We have all discussed it and decided that when his heart stops, we will not resuscitate, but the choice NOW is his.) Now, the hospice social worker and RN are hounding us to change him to "do not resuscitate" status. They want to go into his bedroom and explain to him how resuscitating him would crush all his ribs, etc. We told them that we would not permit them to discuss that with him in that manner. He knows he is dying. He doesn't need to hear that. He needs to hang on to a little shred of hope. Then, when they were over here today, he had a very bad pressure ulcer on his foot. He has had MRSA in the past, and the pain was causing him to grimace today. The nurse just put a band aid on it. We thought she would have the doc call in an antibiotic. This evening, I noticed the redness spreading and exudate. I called the on-call nurse and found out that the other nurse didn't do anything. She said, "Oh, we don't usually treat infections in hospice care, unless the family wants it." I told her that we weren't even given a choice. Is this typical of hospice care?!?