In search of a good death: Can children with life threatening illness  and their families experience a good death?

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7408.222-b

BMJ 2003;327:222-223 (26 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7408.222-b

Letter

In search of a good death

Can children with life threatening illness and their families experience a good death?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—As care givers of children who are dying, we were disappointed that the experience of dying children and theirfamilies was not broached by Ellershaw and Ward or Clarke.^1
2 Do we in society continue to find it impossible to thinkabout death in childhood? To imagine that children with lifethreatening illness and their families can experience a gooddeath? What could possibly be experienced as good during thisdying journey?

Paediatric palliative and hospice care continues to lack a significant voice in medical debates, literature, and research, as wellas in the design and delivery of services. Why, for example,is there currently only one active free standing children'shospice in North America? Yet a significant number of childrendie of a life threatening illness or injury each year. In a population of 250 000 (50 000 children) five children are likelyto die each year from . . . [Full text of this article]

Laura Beaune, palliative care coordinator

laura.beaune@sickkids.ca

Christine Newman, palliative care physician

Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1X8

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

StumbleUpon Add to Technorati

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Articles

Care of the dying patient: the last hours or days of life • Commentary: a "good death" is possible in the NHS: John Ellershaw, Chris Ward, and Rabbi Julia Neuberger
BMJ 2003 326: 30-34. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]