Madam, - William Hennessy (Letters, March 21st ), writing of the death of his wife in a public ward in one of our public hospitals in June 2004, has broken the silence surrounding the indignity visited upon a dying person in our hospitals by not giving them and their families the space and privacy which they need.
In doing so he has called upon all of us who have witnessed this reprehensible practice and remained silent and consequently complicit to speak out now for the dying and their families, who are often too sad or traumatised at the time to air their feelings of pain and hurt.
I have on more than one occasion witnessed a person dying in a public ward surrounded by family and friends with only a flimsy floral curtain providing a very doubtful privacy.
Very often the television is on at high volume for the entertainment of the other patients and one can hear the banter and conversation of patients, staff and visitors.
In treating a dying person in such an undignified manner within our hospitals, our actions speak louder than any ethos, vision or mission statement which might be proclaimed or framed in our hospital lobby.
In asking why his wife should have had to die in such an undignified manner Mr Hennessy questions implicitly why we as a people tend to ignore the reality of death in our hospitals and at times appear to overlook the rights of those who are dying.
In this enlightened age ought not all our public or critical care hospitals become hospices also? Has the concept of total patient care, embracing the whole person from the cradle to the grave been lost or forgotten?
Surely the transfer of a patient to the hospice for the dying ought to become a thing of the past. Is it not possible to have a holistic, integrated hospice-type model within all our public hospitals, providing the full range of medical expertise including hospice-quality palliative care to the terminally ill? Is it beyond our capability to deliver best medical expertise alongside best hospice care? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were to concentrate our efforts in providing centres of excellence for the sick and the dying under the one roof, with all staff working together as a multi-disciplinary team? Wouldn't Mr Hennessy's wife have had her dignity and privacy preserved if even the philosophy of the hospice movement became part and parcel of the fabric of our public hospitals? - Yours, etc,
DECLAN MORIARTY PP,Wheatfields Close,Clondalkin,Dublin.