Quote Originally Posted by m0nde View Post
yeah i was surprised that the niggers and vietnamese
It's not an issue of race. If you want to hear my opinion which is slightly closer to the truth, it seems like minorities in hospitals are often given the jobs that people usually do not want to do.
I'm almost sick of talking poorly of hospitals at this point and just don't even want to bother doing it anymore, but one thing I personally have noticed is that high risk high stress low pay jobs are often given to minorities. I am not sure if this was semi-intentional, subconscious, or if they merely wound up with the job because they weren't one of the people who asked not to do it.

Visiting my grandfather in hospice, the night nurse there barely spoke English. I guess no one wants to work nights in hospice, but they do need to have someone there at night, so basically whoever applies for that job gets it.

Again, it's not an issue of race at all. For me, the issue was the language barrier. Due to a technicality, no one was giving my grandfather pain meds in hospice before we showed up.. Literally nothing. No. Pain. Medication. We almost had to start arguing with the night nurse to get him put on pain meds. I don't know what it was; at the time I thought maybe she had been told explicitly by someone not to give out pain medication willy nilly or she'll get fired, so she took this very seriously and simply would not give pain meds out at all.

Here is the part that seriously bothers me though. He couldn't have even asked for pain meds if he wanted to. He had just had an unsuccessful surgery to remove throat cancer which ended disasterously; the cancer had sort of softened/weakened and ate away at the tissue between the esophagus and the trachea, so when they tried to remove the tumor, they ripped right through into his trachea.. He couldn't talk obviously, and hence could not ask for pain medication.

The doctor had assured my aunt, however, that they would make sure he was pain free in hospice on plenty of pain meds until he passed. When we showed up the night of the next day though, of course, no one was giving him any pain medication whatsoever.

The only thing even remotely resembling an excuse that I can think of is that the doctor determined that narcotics could end up prolonging his suffering; if the brain is in a state of euphoria, the individual may cling to life even when their body would naturally otherwise opt to accept death, as the body and brain usually recognize when an injury is beyond repair, but opiates could theoretically prevent the brain from recognizing the traumatic state of the body.
But I don't think that was the case, because after we PUSHED to get him pain medication, it immediately helped. He was able to relax and go to sleep, and I literally heard a sigh of relief of his pain dissipating once the medication kicked in. He died peacefully in his sleep a few hours later.

If we hadn't been there to make sure he got humane treatment, his last hours would have been completely miserable
I am just glad we were able to be there for him, and glad that we were able to help him out by being there