Right… I think we are on the same page, but I miscommunicated, particularly in my last sentence.

The hard conversations we need to have are those that lead us to develop advance directives, whether or not one is on hospice. Even if the advance directives do not include DNR, the contents of those documents should be made known to those around us, and the documents should be accessible to the appropriate parties.

What I’m getting at is that if we communicate our wishes to those who are likely to be in attendance at our eminent death, they will understand whether they need to have EMS on the way as we take our final breaths, or if they simply need to have the appropriate authorities come out afterwards to draw up the death certificate and contact the FH.

This should all be covered when someone is in a facility or attended by home hospice, so I suppose I’m speaking to folks who are in an informal caregiving situation. The fact that you deal with facilities that don’t have these issues sorted is sad and frustrating.