Study finds some hospice patients stop food, drink

From: Deseret News (Salt Lake City) | Date: July 25, 2003| Author: | Copyright information

A surprising number of terminally ill hospice patients choose to speed their deaths by refusing food and drink, a study in Oregon suggests.

In fact, the survey of hospice nurses found that patients pick this means of ending life -- which is legal everywhere in the United States -- twice as often as physician-assisted suicide, which is legal only in Oregon.

The study further found that these patients are not depressed and typically die tranquilly, within two weeks.

The patients said they were ready to die, their quality of life was poor or they were afraid it would become so, and they saw no ...

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