End of Life Issues

Will we die the way we'd like to? The evidence suggests not. While most Americans say they'd prefer to die at home, the majority die in hospitals, where pain management for the terminally ill has traditionally played a secondary role. Even if we die pain-free and at home, how will our families foot the bill?
On September 10, 2000, a four-part PBS series from a team of award-winning journalists led by Bill and Judith Davidson Moyers was aired on PBS. The series reported on the end-of-life issues facing Americans. Based on two years of research, ON OUR OWN TERMS: MOYERS ON DYING revealed the stories of the dying, their families, and their caregivers and illustrate the growing struggle to balance medical intervention with comfort and humanity.

The series was accompanied by a community action, education and Web campaign. Locally, health care, religious and advocacy groups joined together to host a variety of events in Lima and surrounding communities.

The premier of ON OUR OWN TERMS explores America's search for new ways of thinking about death. It focuses on people--patients and caregivers--who are finding ways to overcome the fear and denial that dominate mainstream American culture and open conversations that help us live with dying.

The series continues with a report on the evolution of palliative care, otherwise know as comfort care. Leaders in this movement emphasize pain management, and the need for doctors to address a patient's psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being, as well as his or her physical condition.

Dying well, to many, means a matter of control over choices to be made as we die. We fear dying in pain; we fear that too much will be done to keep us alive or not enough. The third program looks at the issues surrounding efforts to control the circumstances of our death and the implications for families, institutions and communities.

In the final program, we follow crusading individuals who offer palliative care to the working poor and the uninsured. Through their work with terminally ill patients, who otherwise would risk falling between the cracks of the U.S. healthcare system, these doctors and nurses are creating models for change.

The West Central Ohio Health Ministries Program has tapes of the series available for loan. Contact the Health Ministries Program at (419) 227-0753 to borrow the tapes.

During the fall, many local newspapers published the first article in a fifteen-part series on dying from Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.  Finding Our Way: Living with Dying in America addresses a variety of end of life issues. Americans are looking for better ways to face the emotional and practical realities of serious illness and dying. This series presents the real-life experiences of people who have courageously struggled to find their personal answers to some of life's toughest questions.

FINDING OUR WAY is a short course on death and dying in America. The practical advice, resources and personal stories teach how to approach these most significant life events with the same kind of planning and emotional preparedness we strive for in the rest of our lives.

For more information and to access the articles, visit the website at www.findingourway.net.

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