Vwe want to share our experience and that of our mother, over 90 admitted to the hospital John Paul II of Olbia (OT) six times in the space of two months (from 2/12/21 to 4.2.22), without having been given the appropriate palliative care, to alleviate the atrocious pain caused by the incurable, progressive disease that had damaged important vital organs.
For us children it was clear that our mother was dying, so we specified that we did not want any therapeutic persistence, but help to alleviate her suffering. Our requests and pleas made to the hospital and to the family doctor for pain therapy / palliative care, went unheeded.
During the last discharge (04.02.22) we were informed that by now it would not last more than 30 days, with the suggestion to take her home and make her feel our affection and our closeness. Therapy recommended by the hospital in case of pain: Tachipirina 1 g 1 tablet (up to three tablets per day) – Therapy recommended by your family doctor: Thoradol Tra-Dol 20mg / ml oral drops 3 max 4 drops only in case of strict need , Busette 5 mcgm transdermal patch.
02.28.22 Despair led us to contact a doctor who did not know our mother, in explaining the situation he came to visit our mother and in understanding the gravity he activated with adequate pain therapy.
After 27 days of endless agony, my mother passed away, her weight was approx. 25 Kg.
We family members were present day and night, distressed and powerless in being able to alleviate even a small part of his sufferings. It is not necessary to be a doctor to understand that Tachipirina, Thoradol and Busette 5 mcgm transdermal patch certainly cannot relieve excruciating pain or unbearable spasms generated by vital organs damaged by the state of degenerative disease.
Our great pain was not only death itself which in certain situations represents the liberation from a severe state of physical suffering, but we are morally and psychologically destroyed by the indifference, cynicism and cruelty with which our mother was treated.
The agony of hearing her cries of pain, the pleas for help, our frustration at the impossibility of being able to give her some relief and dignity especially during her last month of life will accompany us forever. All the more so after having been informed, by medical circles outside the Hospital of Olbia, that in such cases it was right and ethically obligatory – moral and medical – to administer the palliative care required, in order to accompany the person with dignity until the end of his days of life.
Hearing her cries of pain and the pleas for help, which remain etched in our minds, accentuate the frustration, for the impossibility of not having been able to give her a minimum of relief and dignity during her last period of life, characterized by suffering. atrocious unspeakable, without the treating doctors (the family doctor and the hospital doctors) adopting the appropriate treatment against pain (which is also provided for by law).
We often hear about similar cases, especially in the cases of elderly people who are considered as Series B patients, precisely because they are considered elderly or, worse still, old, to whom all the possible treatments are often not administered to accompany them with dignity to the end of their days of life.
Although there is a ‘European Charter of the rights of the elderly person’, which establishes the right to access palliative care in the face of incurable diseases that result in the death of the person after excruciating suffering, their needs are often not met as well as the protection of their children. their most basic rights of persons and citizens.
It goes without saying that in the absence of medical ethics and for other inexplicable reasons, patients and their families often suffer intolerable situations for a country that considers itself civil. In such circumstances, the most common (childish) justifications are cuts in public health, lack of staff and lack of facilities.
We want to recall the Hippocratic oath: “I swear to pursue the defense of life, the protection of physical and mental health, the treatment of pain and the relief of suffering while respecting the dignity and freedom of the person to whom, with constant scientific, cultural and social commitment I will inspire all my professional acts “.
We would need:
- Empathic communication;
- Beware of pain therapy to alleviate suffering;
- A referral doctor to refer to;
- Effective pain therapy;
- Organization of home discharge, with competent nurse and doctor.
We hope that our experience, which we wanted to make public, can raise awareness, above all to shake consciences, to avoid that what happened to our mother and to us children does not happen to other patients and their families.
Family members
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