What is your perfect death? Hong Kong to give terminally ill patients more say over how and where they die
- Proposed changes to laws will let people specify the treatments they want – or don’t want – when dying
- Allowing people to die at care homes will give families precious time together, and cut red tape too
When 97-year-old Tso Kwan-pui thinks about death, he is certain about one thing – he hopes to die in the care home for the elderly where he has stayed for the past six years, surrounded by people he knows.
“It is best to leave peacefully in a familiar place with nice surroundings,” said the former trader, who has five children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
When the time comes, he does not want to be sent to hospital and face resuscitation or forced feeding to keep him alive.
“What’s the point of delaying death and making me suffer for a few more days? If it is my time, I should go,” he said.
For now, if his health took a turn for the worse, the home in Lam Tin would first move him to its hospice room for 24-hour medical care.
Under current Hong Kong laws, however, he would have to be sent to hospital any time death was imminent. The ambulance staff moving him would perform resuscitation, even if he had indicated earlier that he did not want it. And his death would have to be certified in hospital.
