Posted on March 13, 2007 by thestateofblog
After lives in which they often struggle to get medical care, African Americans and other minorities are more likely than whites to want, and get, more aggressive care as death nears and are less likely to use hospice and palliative-care services to ease their suffering, according to a large body of research and leading experts.
As a result, they are more likely to experience more medicalized deaths, dying more frequently in the hospital, in pain, on ventilators and with feeding tubes — often after being resuscitated or getting extra rounds of chemotherapy, dialysis or other care, studies show.
The State Of . . . American Healthcare. Is this a good or bad? I’m (rich) split, quite frankly. I feel a certain level of pride that my elders have a fighting spirit at the end, however, there is this nagging feeling of an unwillingness to accept death. Fear of death. Is there a stigma among blacks or minorities that if you don’t fight at the end, then you are quitter or that there is no honor in a quiet death? I like to think that I would accept death in whatever way it comes, but I’m not in a hurry to find out.
Filed under: Race, health
