Futile Care - when medicine is pointless

An extremely interesting look into the issues surrounding the medical care of someone who's dying.

Obviously I know about this from my own experience with my wife when she was dying. She spend 9 months in hospital at the end and died after being transferred to a nursing home. During those last months it became clear that she wasn't going to get better, and what that meant as far as medical intervention went. For example she didn't want to be resuscitated if she'd had another heart attack.

But still the hospital kept trying to make her better. At one stage she was taking 60 or so pills a day FFS. It was only when she got to the nursing home that all the meds were simplified and she had the space to die. 

I know it's a complicated subject and finding the right balance can be hard, but I do feel that the hospital kept her alive needlessly for about 3 months too long; only to suffer terribly. It was something neither of us wanted for her.