Living well includes leaving well

Most people would not wish to die in hospital (or a nursing home or a charitable institution) but many are obliged to do so because of the absence of a viable alternative – that of passing away at home while surrounded by the nearest and dearest who have made a familiar life worth living. A survey by the Lien Foundation in 2014 showed that 77 per cent of Singaporeans preferred to die at home but that only 27 per cent had done so in 2013, leaving a substantial majority to spend their last days unwillingly in the lonely anonymity of clinical surroundings. Those figures have improved in the succeeding years. It was reported in 2022 that

61 per cent spend their final days in hospital

and that Singapore hopes to lower that figure to 51 per cent in five years by boosting support for palliative care. Such care would provide more professional and social support for the personal preferences of patients.

Ng Teng Fong General Hospital is pioneering efforts to make it possible for patients at the end of their medical journeys

to die in the dignity of home amid the comfort of kith and kin.

Critically ill patients lying in the intensive care unit of the hospital now have a choice of spending their final moments at home. Seven such patients have done so, preferring to forgo the option of aggressive treatment for that of dignity in death. The hospital’s approach could provide a model for other hospitals to emulate. Not only are patients’ wishes respected but, also, intensive-care beds are made available to other critically sick people. The hospital’s success, in looking after the delicate logistical aspects of transferring home people who are on life support, plays a critical role in the last leg of the medical journey. On no account should that quality of care be compromised.