eli5: Patients in hospice care are often unconscious due to high doses of sedative drugs, and are given no intravenous fluids, which leads to death by dehydration. Why is this done? Is there any difference between this and physician-assisted suicide?

Question

eli5: Patients in hospice care are often unconscious due to high doses of sedative drugs, and are given no intravenous fluids, which leads to death by dehydration. Why is this done? Is there any difference between this and physician-assisted suicide?

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Answer 1

I’m not entirely sure where you get this information from but having worked in hospice it’s not really accurate with my own experience. Generally speaking where I work we’re not really giving “high” doses of narcotics, typically liquid oral morphine and/or MAYBE liquid oral ativan, but it’s not a round the clock process and dosing may differ per nurse/physician discretion. Also, we typically define hospice as anticipating death within 6 months. We’ve had plenty of patients go on and off hospice for months or even years with fluctuations in their health. I’ve spoken to quite lucid hospice patients hours before they die.