Mercy Hospice Des Moines, IA

SorrowfulirateFriend

Hospices are generally know as caring, comforting, and their nurses going out to homes providing care have the same reputation. Mercy Hospice assigned a visigting nurse to this patient's home. The nurse was to listen to the patient's heart, etc. & general health needs. This nurse never once told the family that the patient's lungs were filling with fluid (a condition that occurs with later rounds of chemotherapy). This patient essentially suffocated,from lungs filled with fluid. The patient was frightened and gasping for breath to the point of not being able to speak for over 14 hours expiring just before 10 PM that night. There are humane ways of dying, but this is not one of them. The nurse made her ONE trip to the house early that morning and just stuck a nose canula for oxygen into the patients open gasping mouth. The family was never given the choice of having the patients lungs cleared by aspiration, which would allow the patient comfort & die many months later by merely slipping into a coma. This way was more cost effective, after all, the patient was going to die anyway! This is NOT the only hospice care facility in this area. There are three other hospice facilities. Mercy Hospice did not provide much mercy.