Unfortunately, many patients die within hospital walls, surrounded by medical equipment and often with little awareness of what is happening. Many of them would like to die at home next to their loved ones. Various hospice programs and palliative care are designed not only to alleviate the suffering of critically ill patients, but also to provide spiritual and psychological assistance. It is also the nurse’s job to ensure that the physical and psychological needs of the dying person are met as much as possible, with all the special needs of such care.
Indeed, it is far from always possible to discharge a dying client from the hospital, because this can end his life much earlier than we would like. Old people also rarely have the opportunity to die at home, because the family usually wants to cure the sick until the last. The reason is often the inability to transport the patient safely. In addition, it is difficult and resource-intensive to ensure the safe transport of all dying elderly people.
As a rule, it is nurses who develop close and personal relationships with patients, and the nurse plays a key role in motivating the patient to participate in treatment or palliative care. This relationship helps to understand and interpret the patient’s feelings, desires and needs of the person who is so seriously ill. The nurse is usually the first to know about many physical and emotional problems, the first to try to solve them, and will often be the person who interacts with other team members and plans help.
As a team member, the nurse has a responsibility to work in collaboration with other professionals to solve patient care problems. They have to gather and organize facts, develop a problem-solving plan, and then execute that plan while maintaining collaborative work with other team members. However, studies note that many families are dissatisfied with the work of the personnel and their attitude towards critically ill patients (Kisorio & Langley, 2016). Nonetheless, nurses’ role includes psychological support of patients that could not be delivered without developing an optimistic, but at the same time, realistic attitude to the patient’s problems (Kisorio & Langley, 2016). It should be noted that it is very important that when helping patients at the last stage of life, a nurse must have a number of qualities, without which it is simply impossible to be close to the patient. These are mercy, kindness and responsiveness to someone else’s grief, a sense of compassion and an ability to empathize.
Reference
Kisorio, L. C., & Langley, G. C. (2016). End-of-life care in intensive care unit: Family experiences.Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 35, 57-65.