Home Health & Hospice Week

One-quarter of Ore.'s hospices don't participate in physician-assisted death process, study finds. Oregon's assisted suicide law hasn't changed much for hospices in that state, according to a new study. "Individual hospice programs generally assume a minor role in the decision-making process of patients who exercise their rights to physicianassisted death," says a study in the September- October issue of The Hastings Report. Hospices' roles are "largely confined to providing information about the law in a 'neutral' manner," says the article in the journal about bioethics. "Moreover, hospices claim they will not assist with providing the medications necessary to hasten a patient's death," notes the study by Oregon State University researchers. Twenty-five percent of the hospices surveyed did not participate in the law at all, notes the study. Twenty-seven percent had limited participation -- when patients asked about physician-assisted death a staff member referred them to the attending physician without any conversation.  [...]