END OF LIFE CARE DECISIONS AND THE HOSPICE MOVEMENT

Inspite of spectacular technological advances made in the recent years, modern medicine has not been able to deny the inevitability of death. Slowly but surely, the approach towards death is changing with increasing emphasis on various end of life care decisions. Many of these decisions are being actively discussed, debated and practised all over the world. Palliative care in hospice has become an accepted mode of management of terminally ill patients, for whom the prognosis is limited. Increase in life expectancy of the Indian people and a strong movement to authorise ex-servicemen for treatment of malignant and other chronic diseases in service hospitals, requires the Armed Forces to consider these end of life care decisions and plan for terminal care in hospice.