PAGE 7

Page 7

Only the signs of very disfiguring illnesses are covered up with bandages and only infectious cases are removed from the home prior to the burial. Why do I describe such "old-fashioned" customs? I think they are an indication of our acceptance of a fatal outcome, and they help the dying patient as well as his family to accept the loss of a loved one. If a patient is allowed to terminate his life in the familiar and beloved environment, less adjustment is required of him. His own family knows him well enough to replace a sedative with a glass of his favourite wine; or the smell of a homecooked soup may give him the appetite to sip a few spoons of fluid which, I think, is still more enjoyable than an infusion. I do not minimize the need for sedatives and infusions and realize full well from my own experience as a country doctor that they are sometimes life-saving and often unavoidable. But I also know that patience and familiar people and foods could replace many a bottle of intravenous fluids given for the simple reason that it fulfills the physiological need without involving too many people and/or individual nursing care. The fact that children are allowed to stay at home where a fatality has struck and are included in the talk, discussions, and fears, gives them the feeling that they are not alone in grief and offers them the comfort of shared responsibility and shared mourning. It prepares them gradually and helps them to view death as part of life, an experience that may help them to grow and mature. 

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