Madam, - The poignant simplicity of William Hennessey's letter (March 21st) describing the death of his wife in a public ward deserves response.
The indignities which his wife, he himself and, likely, others in the ward experienced as a result of this very public period of dying raise fundamental questions about the ability of many hospitals to ensure dignity at the end of life.
In the context of much media coverage of patients waiting on trolleys, it has become commonplace to refer to the unit of hospital provision as being a bed. Mr Hennessey's letter points to the fact that the unit of provision ought to be a room. In addition to fundamental considerations of dignity, privacy and confidentiality, provision of single rooms is associated with better medical outcomes for patients, shortened length of stay and, not unimportantly, reduced variable costs.
These, and other issues relating to the care of people dying in hospitals, deserve to rise higher on the agenda of public debate about the health services and in the formulation of action plans.
The Irish Hospice Foundation has recently called for expressions of interest from hospitals interested in improving services regarding dying, death and bereavement. This follows our experience in the two-year Care for People Dying in Hospitals Project, piloted in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, which explored many issues, of which one of the most significant was that of people dying in open wards. - Yours, etc,
MERVYN TAYLOR, Manager, Hospice-Friendly Hospitals Programme, Irish Hospice Foundation, Nassau Street, Dublin 2.