PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Code words: comfort care.

It doesn’t mean what you think it means. (See also “palliative care,” which means the same thing.) . . .

If your loved one is in the hospital, you shouldn’t infer from, “This doctor or nurse seems like a nice person” or even “This doctor or nurse is a Christian” that “This doctor or nurse would voluntarily and explicitly tell me if the proposal is to remove food and hydration from my loved one. I can trust the rhetorical sound of what this doctor or nurse proposes to me.” You can’t. You can’t trust it. And you certainly cannot infer that such a good person in a medical role would never recommend leaving someone without food or water until death. . . .

A Facebook friend shares the following story about her son, now six, who was born with a serious health condition. She was pressured to put him on “comfort care” when he was a newborn:

It’s very loaded how they present the options. I still remember the way the staff worded it: “Do you want us to do everything possible or do you want to make him as comfortable as possible? Do you want him to be comfortable?” Obviously, we were meant to take “doing everything possible” as being the opposite of being comfortable. It’s easy to see how parents and family members could be tricked/guilt-tripped into something without fully comprehending to what they just agreed[.]