Hospice Care and Catholic Ethics Is Hospice care consistent with Catholic bioethics? Chapple, in her discussion of the topic "Hospice care" in Catholic health care ethics, argues that ultimately the answer is yes, but she acknowledges that there are levels of difficulty in answering the question (Chapple 2009). The ethics of Hospice care present us with a complicated question, insofar as Catholic teachings on end-of-life care have at times provoked public

Who provides the care is dependent upon the patient and the type of care their illness requires. Also, some families are more active in taking care of end of life patients than other families. Indeed, hospice care providers have a significant number of responsibilities as it relates to taking care of the patient. The type of illness that the patient has can increase or decrease the number of responsibilities of

However, they are often emotionally isolated and are unable to determine whether or not they are loved by their family members or whether they will be missed after passing on. This often happens because the family members are not directly involved in providing hospice care to their patients. Hospice care can be a great way of strengthening the connection between the terminally ill patient and their loved ones and

Hospice and Attitudes Towards Death Attitudes towards dying, death, and bereavement are very dependent upon culture. Some cultures embrace death as a natural part of the life cycle and do not attach fear to death. Other cultures are very fearful of the topic of death and treat it like a taboo. "In many preliterate societies, the dead are imbued with special powers and considered potentially harmful to the living. Many customs

Children believed that death is more like sleep and the dead may or may not return. Children between five and nine years of age belonged to the second group. Maria observed that children belonging to the second group perceived death as an irreversible phenomenon but still thought of it as an avoidable one. Death for these children represented a certain shadowy or skeletal figure who could possibly be evaded

In fact it is federally mandated that hospices must give the patient every option available to them in order to efficiently manage pain, "the federal guidelines regulating hospice require the hospice to make every reasonable effort to assure that the patient's pain is controlled," (Hospice Patient's Alliance, 2008). Hospice services are sophisticated and rely on a number of professionals to help comfort and ease the pain of patients who have