As stated, both of the above statements are false. Hospices can help 100% of patients and do so in many different ways according to individual situations and needs. Having said that, it is true that hospices cannot control all symptoms all the time.

The 'bottom line' is making the unbearable bearable, and this is readily achievable with skill, imagination and determination in approximately 95%. In the remainder, approximately 5%, it is much harder to achieve this goal, but that does not mean that the patient 'cannot be helped' or is not helped.

In extreme situations, patients will receive sedation to keep them asleep, around the clock if necessary, in order to ease intolerable physical and/or mental distress.

No one need die in agony. It is not necessary to 1egalize 'mercy killing'/euthanasia to make this claim a reality.

Dr Robert G Twycross
Macmillan Clinical Reader Oxford University

July 1997