News Tonight Africa

The report "Dying in America" released by an Institute of Medicine report in the last week mentions in detail about the aggressive treatments being undertaken on fatally ill patients who actually do not need them as these are highly expensive.

The report revealed that a majority of Americans say that they would prefer to die at home, but as per the American medicine they have to take the ill patient to the hospital as soon as possible where doctors try their best to save his/her life.

Dr. Edward Martin, head of the palliative care medicine program at Brown University, said that if a person is already admitted in hospital and is on ventilator it is not possible that the person dies at home, rather he/she will die in the hospital.

Therefore, he stated that it is very necessary to disclose beforehand whether you want the best medical facility to be given to save your life or either you want to spend last few days of your life peacefully at your home, surrounded by your loved once.

For this wish patients need to fill out an advance care directives, a form listing which treatments they would want or not want. An individual have the freedom to make changes in their previously opted choice at any time.

Authors of "Dying in America" have advised the private insurers to cover end-of-life consultations, which is already followed by many of the private insurers. The American Medical Association wants Medicare to follow suit.

It has been reported that 42% of Medicare patients died in hospice facility in 2009. But more than a quarter of those patients under hospice care were brought there for three days or even less. The report has revealed that this tendency to keep a patient under expensive settings has worsened in the last five years.

The report has also asked the Congress to put an end on the "perverse", a financial incentive under which a fatally ill patient is put into invasive medical treatments.