The quality of death: ranking end-of-life care across the world.
Title
The quality of death: ranking end-of-life care across the world.
Creator
Economist Intelligence Unit
Date
2010
Subject
Health Services; Benefits of PPC
Description
Quality of life is a common phrase. The majority of human endeavours are ostensibly aimed at improving quality of life, whether for the individual or the community, and the concept ultimately informs most aspects of public policy and private enterprise. Advancements in healthcare have been responsible for the most significant quality-of-life gains in the recent past: that humans are (on average) living longer, and more healthily than ever, is well established. But “quality of death†is another matter.Death, although inevitable, is distressing to contemplate and in many cultures is taboo. Even where the issue can be openly discussed, the obligations implied by the Hippocratic oath—rightly the starting point for all curative medicine—do not fit easily with the demands of end-of-life palliative care, where the patient’s recovery is unlikely and instead the task falls to the physician (or, more often, caregiver) to minimise suffering as death approaches. Too often such care is simply not available: according to the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance, while more than 100m people would benefit from hospice and palliative care annually (including family and carers who need help and assistance in caring), less than 8% of those in need access it.
2010
Rights
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Type
Journal Article
Citation List Month
Backlog
Citation
Economist Intelligence Unit, “The quality of death: ranking end-of-life care across the world.,” Pediatric Palliative Care Library, accessed February 10, 2025, https://pedpalascnetlibrary.omeka.net/items/show/13830.