The roots of hospice care began in the 1960s as a benevolent movement to provide dying patients more time with their families in a dignified manner. The hospice industry is now a fourteen-billion-dollar industry, run primarily by for profit industries. Hospice facilities play a crucial role in delivering palliative services to patients and their families. In the United States, about half of all deaths happen in a hospice program. When a patient is certified by their primary care physician and a hospice medical physician that they are terminally ill and has six months or less to live, they are then qualified to receive hospice benefits. Hospice care encompasses nursing, home health aide, social worker, and counseling services; most hospice care is provided in the home setting.
As part of the health care industry, hospices are also subject to negligence cases. Negligent tort cases can arise when there is an “unintentional failure to live up to accepted standards of behaviors”. The four key elements to any negligence case are duty of care, breach of duty, harm, and causation. A legal study of various hospice negligence cases will be conducted to …show more content…
The McGregor v. Hospice Care of Louisiana in Baton Rouge illustrates how a possible breach in the standard of care can be grounds for a negligence case. Donald McGregor was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and with the deterioration of his health, was receiving hospice care at his home. The nurses visited his home and reported back to the oncologist, who would then prescribe pain medication. A few months later, the patient’s son contacted the hospice, stating that the prescribed pain medication was not enough. Furthermore, he would not allow the nurse to return to the house, and was “exhibiting threatening behavior toward her”. Hospice then discharged Mr. McGregor from its care, and he died shortly