COVID-19: The Tragic Loss of Coronavirus Patients’ Final Words

Zeynep Tufekci writes in The Atlantic:

 

Of all the wrongdoings of this pandemic, the one that haunts me most is how people are left to die alone. Health-care workers have been heroic throughout all this, but they do not replace the loved ones whom the dying need to be with, and speak with, even if only one last time.

A hallmark of COVID-19 has been the speed with which some patients have crashed, going from feeling only a little sick to being unable to breathe, sometimes in the space of a few hours. Such a crash often necessitates intubation, a process that then renders one incapable of speaking. Many people on ventilators are also heavily sedated and unconscious, to keep them from pulling out the invasive tubes going down their throat. Thus, sometimes with little warning, all communication is lost, and more often than not, a patient is without family or loved ones when this happens....

It’s also not just that the dying deserve to be heard or that their wisdom is valuable, but that the living need to have the chance to hear them—to let go on their own, mutual terms.

The Tragic Loss of Coronavirus Patients’ Final Words

 

 

A Friar at COVID-19 Deathbeds: "The Miracle is to Let Go"

From The Washington Post, a story about a friar at the side of those dying of COVID-19:

Normally,” he said, “the family is there with me bedside at death, and when we say the Our Father it is very emotional. Now I stare at a person that is taking their last breaths. I’m with a doctor and a couple of nurses. We’re saying goodbye.”

...

Each morning, he reviews death logs. He then walks through the emergency department and intensive care unit, where he stands behind glass and cues up music on the smartphone he keeps in his pocket. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is a favorite selection. On Funky Fridays, as he calls them, Bathe mixes Benedictine chants with James Brown. If patients are awake, he flexes his biceps or pumps a fist — encouragement to stay strong. He takes precautions when praying over the intubated, slipping on an N95 mask and face shield. In all, he ministers to more than 25 patients daily.
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“Music gives a little more sense of sacredness so I don’t get distracted by nurses and doctors screaming,” he said. “I am focused on that patient, looking at that face. I know who that person is, imagine what it is like for them to be alive.”

...

When a Catholic dies, he performs the commendation of the dead, a seven-minute service. His responsibilities range from distributing Communion to finding prayer books for patients across faiths to leading memorial services for staff. He is “staunchly against” virtual bereavement, which has become common amid the pandemic, insisting on providing a physical presence.
“People are looking for a miracle when the miracle is to let go,” he said.

At New York hospital, a friar watches over those dying: ‘The miracle is to let go’

Talking to Children About Death and Loss in the Age of COVID-19

Families everywhere are facing loss in ways they never have before. For some, these losses are hitting closer to home with the deaths of loved ones; but all families are experiencing some amount of loss - a normal semblance of day-to-day life, the cancellation of anticipated celebrations, vacations, camps and more. As parents seek advice and resources to navigate this newly uncharted territory, they're turning to trusted brands like PJ Library to help draw a roadmap of the "new normal" of quarantine - as well as a toolkit for having more difficult conversations with children about death and dying, mourning and remembrance.

On May 6th at 3:30pm ET, PJ Library will host a public webinar, "Talking with Children about Death and Loss in the Age of the Coronavirus." This streaming video discussion will be free to families everywhere, helping them tackle one of the hardest subjects to deal with as a parent, approached through the lens of Jewish teaching and values.


Register for the webinar

The New Urgency of EOL Conversations Because of COVID-19

Many doctors have asked: is this the calm before the storm? As more people start to get acute respiratory distress syndrome from this virus – and they will – it will get more difficult to manage. Are we going to be trying to assess our older patients with comorbidities in a telephone consult to ascertain whether they should go to hospital? Should we be starting to talk to all our patients about what their plan is if they get the virus?

Absolutely, we should. Any patient being admitted to hospital may not survive and may not see their family again. Especially if they are elderly and/or with comorbidities.

Steve Carroll, a US emergency physician said last week: “Patients are arriving without family or friends. Now we make sure they call their family before we put them on a ventilator. Because they may never get to speak to them again.”

COVID-19: Time to get serious about end-of-life discussions

COVID-19: Who lives, who dies, who decides

I used to work on some of these issues in the government: should we ban a pesticide that will cause two cancers a year if banning it will raise the price of a bushel of strawberries 50 cents?

As this article discusses, we are terrible at making these trade-offs. When one child falls down a well, we spare no expense in rescuing her, clearly the right choice. But when it comes to deciding whether all wells should have walls around them to make sure no other child falls down, we are not very good at figuring out the right answer. If there is one.

How would have you responded if a year ago the President asked everyone to make a plan in case there was a pandemic? Would you vote for a candidate because he or she had an expensive contingency plan for a virus?

An isolation-induced recession would reduce economic activity by roughly 21 percent, compared with 9 percent under a more lax approach, according to a ballpark estimate by economists Martin Eichenbaum, Sergio Rebelo and Mathias Trabandt. It’s not unreasonable to assume that strict containment could cost $2 trillion. These same authors estimate that such measures would prevent more than half a million deaths and protect millions of other Americans from becoming infected. If their analysis is even roughly right, these are huge health benefits and huge economic costs. Which path has more value? The answer isn’t obvious.

American policymakers have rarely been forced to consider such trade-offs during a massive pandemic. But we have spent decades trying to understand other trade-offs that help put them into context: How much should Medicare pay for a new lung cancer treatment? Should we require a car to have a $700 air bag? Should a company have to spend millions of dollars to remove contaminated soil beneath a remote and abandoned industrial site?

Who lives, who dies, who decides