"But They Are Dying." Hospice physicians like me can't usually offer patients the care they need. - Slate

[EuterpeThelo]

44. Oh, I feel ya

Hospice "care" we received for my poor, beloved dying mama in her last days was so abysmal that I fired the first company after four DAYS, after they were so rough bathing her that she cried and the ONE time I asked the nurse to empty the commode instead of me doing it, she walked through my house with a bag dripping shit across my entire hallway and kitchen and tossed it in the trash instead of just...y'know, flushing it down the toilet.

The second hospice couldn't figure out how to get her out of the ambulance back into our home upon her return from the emergency room due to the insurmountable barrier of THREE steps up into the front door (and despite that we'd told them there was ingress through the kitchen with ONE step or through my bedroom with NO steps). They left us sitting beside her on the gurney in my driveway for an hour, confused and shivering and comatose, until I called a supervisor and screamed bloody murder.

After that, they reneged on their commitments and the "nurse" they sent was so rude that, when I said I wasn't comfortable trying to suction out her lungs by myself (because I have literally zero medical training besides being a mom and bandaging skinned knees), she insisted my mom would have to go into a home. That was the ONE promise I made her, that she'd never have to go into a facility and would die in her own bedroom. The nurse stressed me out so badly that I fainted and they had to call paramedics to make sure *I* was OK!

My BFF had dropped everything and rushed to our side to help, and ended up yelling at the people on the phone at hospice that they needed to get over here and honor the promises they'd made to our family. After my mom passed, they had the NERVE to ask to come to her memorial and request a five-star Yelp review!!! (Spoiler alert: uh, NO, GFY!)