morphine given too randomly in elderly patients!

MY daugter in laws father past away just under an hour ago. I have just had to go and take back up the hospital. Yet 4 hours ago she text me to say they have just put my dad on morphine  (he is ONLY 54 YEARS OF AGE!!!!!!!!!). I remember a few months back when my grampa died, the nurse stated they were giving him something to be free from pain and help him on his way. I asked what they were giving him, the nurse replied its only Morphine sweetheart. So YES this has to be stopped. Give Morphine by all means to combat pain, but NOT use it as a means to and end, thats involentry manslughter. Thats not dying as God intended, thats being pushed to make way for the next victim.

My daughter in laws dad just came back from Spain the end of June and ad no prolems. On Sunday he had laboured breathing chest pains. He had a stroke and heart attack the same time. Went in on the Sunday, Doing brilliant by the following Thursday, Overnight they start giving him morphine and now he has gone. AS QUICK AS THAT. He was alert responsive, he was just getting used to being without the use of his right side and slurred speech, yet he was fighting and winning, this was to the point his daughter and my son were becoming carers until he could help himself a few months or years down the line. That right has just been taken from them all. Most of all the poor sod lying in the hospital bed DEAD.

I am angry at the way this works. He was positive and everything going for him. What gives them the right to do this to another human being just because they have a qualification. Drug dealers dont get away with it so why them!!!!!!!!!!!  Practises certainly need to change AND FAST.

My mother's cause of death was bronchial pnemonia, shortly after starting morhpine by hospice which they insisted would help her to breath. Just a week prior, we took her to emergency and she had a bladder infection.  They also exrayd her lungs...lungs were clear.  Once they put her on morhine, (without our knolwedge) it was abosolutely horrible.  I think the had an alergic reaction to it.  My father and I hired an independant pathologist for an autopsy.  Cause of death, bronchial pneumonia - onset - within days. 

 

 My mom is 97, totally contracted, had 2 strokes, cannot move, they hand feed her puree....very rarely opens her eyes 1/2 way......hospice claims she has no pain, made her leave hospice house after 2 months, and we had to put her in a nursing home ,      they give her no pain med's..or morphine...why are they keeping this poor tortured soul alive?????

hospice is in the death business. They tried to finish my dad off too, insisting he had 72 hours to live, max. This was 3 weeks ago. Luckily i realized what they were doing before it was too late, and my dad is now doing quite well. They tried dehydrating him and putting him in a morphine coma so I couldn't hear his screams for water. They started out as a good thing, but once it went corporate and started making billions, it became quite a different thing. Because they know they can get away with it with elderly patients, they arent too worried about lawsuits, but they DO need a massive class action lawsuit in the future to keep them in check.

My 84 year old father received morphine in the ER to prepare for the pain he would have during X-rays because his legs were contracted. He fell out of bed at the nursing home. He was hallucinating and tried to get out of the bed when he fell. He had been having hallucinations off and on for a few weeks and was treated for urinary tract infections. He still had his right mind. He had only a fractured toe and tibia and they sent him back to the nursing home at 1am. He had a valve replacement 4 years ago and it was successfull but he had other problems due to the surgery that eventually caused him to be bedridden. His vitals were good. The next day I called to check on him and they said he was fine. At 3:45 that afternoon I received a call that my father had passed away. The death certificate says cardiac dysrhythmic and coronary artery disease only because he had heart disease in his history. Now I am wondering if the morphine could have killed him.

As a health professional I can say that to give someone what sounds like 20mg of morphine and then send them is utterly diabolical - unless the patient is a using heroin addict. That would cause respoatory depression in the majority of people. I completely agree - ASK QUESTIONS noone will take offence unless they are substandard - as a persons caregiver (and families are) as long as the patient themselves are happy for you to know, it is best that you know and are aware of any side-effects so you can watch over your loved ones knowledgably

Yes, the morphine is suppose to comfort, but do you believe it should be given per bolus and also q2hours if the person is non-responsive and shows no facial expressions of being in pain? Do you think the morphine (liquid) should be given if the person is snoring? Well, my mom is on hospice now dying with cancer and we were told to give it regardless. I worked as a CNA off and on for over 13 years and I do not think the morphine should be given if they show no signs of pain. Also, when their blood pressure is 53/20 why is there a need to give more morphine knowing that pain medication decreases the blood pressure? Two of my sisters and I are at war now when we should be comforting each other at this time. I DO NOT THINK IT SHOULD BE GIVEN.

Many of you have harsh words against morphine and I think you guys are in the unrealistic, radical minority. You fail to realize several things. The elders are 78 or 95 years old and in poor health. They will be in more discomfort without morphine but I respect those who want to leave this world with a clear state of mind. Second, the hospice is not trying to rush their death. Empty beds means no revenues so your arguement that the hopsice is trying to speed up their death is a weak. Lastly, you make a lame excuse to blame the morphine and the hospice for their death when it's really when God wants to take them away as comfortable as possible. Why did you put them there in the first place? Next time, you can quit you job and take your love ones home and let them suffer a discomfortable and painful death.


Grandmother who is 96 years old suffered a stroke cannot talk anymore. This means that she cannot eat or drink as she wouldn't be able to swallow. In her living will, she said that she had a long life and made peace. She does not want to be rescuititate. So, it's appropriate to remove all unnecessary life support and give morphine to give her comfort. We are not going to keep wishing that she'll stay alive for what, a few more days or even weeks at her deathbed. We love her and don't want her to suffer anymore.

Your post was a paralell story to what happened to my 95 y.o. grandma... she was given morph and was just about gone, except i intervened and asked them to STOP all morph and please administer antibiotics intravenously... and of course i prayed... within 10 hours she came back and was talking although still weak. This was 6 weeks ago, and she is doing fine. Please people be informed as to what really happens. YOU do have a choice to say NO, if the situation is not that 'end of life' terminal. Thank God i did and followed my instincts.

Thanks for making me aware of this. I felt uneasy when hospice brought this drug into my home for my 92yr old mom whom they considered failure to thrive even though she is not. They figured her bmi wrong. I will never allow this drug be given to my mom. She is stable, just can't talk because of many tias. Otherwise she is doing well. I brought in hospice to see if they could just keep an eye on her vitals. My moms wish is to never be hospitalized .. But if it comes down to having my mom fed by iv they said they will not do that. That will be the time they are gone. Thanks for confirming my feelings about hospice.

I totally agree!  Just experienced the exact same thing with my MIL.  My husband had a feeling about the Roxinal and took his mom off it for a few day to see if that was the problem.....the result:  the social worker from our Hospice turned us into the county and I had them on my doorstep one day out of the blue to do an investigation!  Since then she has passed, however I believe it was from the Roxinal.  I just learned of this term "Snowing" from a family member who is a nurse and as she described it; "The medical community never talks about it, but it is an acceptable practice."  I gave it to her as prescribed because she was getting a bed bath that day and I didn't want her to have any pain during it....well as soon as the bed bath was over...she died.  So now I am faced with the guilt of did I do the right thing or did I kill her?  Since then that id**t social worker has left our Hospice and has moved out of the area, thankfully because I am afraid of what I may say/do to her if I ever see her again!

My poor mother has been fighting stage 4 colon cancer for 32 months. At first she was given only 6months. She was put on palliative chemo and responded well for about 11months. After another round and the realization that her body quit responding we were sent home with hospice brochures. After 2 months she decided to go into hospice. They did show up with all the "terrible drugs" ( which she did not have to start for 2 more months. She has been on morphine extended and drops since end of Dec. Hasn't died yet, but let me tell you, there are much more things worse than death! I don't want to lose her, but I also want her comfortable too. Sounds like a lot of deninal to me.

Omg Sandra, i have just read your heart wrenching post about your sweet mama, I too have just lost my mama 2 weeks ago, and everything is going around and around in my head. I live in California and had decided too visit my mother in U.K as i was told she was not doing that well, when we got to her she did look frail but seemed in good spirits too see me, she was 77, the second week of our visit on the Wednesday, she was struggling to get her breath, and was admitted to hospital,as there was crackling on the left lung, i called on the Thursday and they told me she should be out by Sunday, Sunday came and they told me her bloods were not right and they were to keep her in. We visited her Sunday, and stayed from 3 until 4.30( visiting hours) she was in a lot of pain and she had thrush in her mouth , I asked the doctors if they think I should leave for California , as I was scheduled to go home on the Tuesday, they told me to go ahead and go home as they didn't anticipate her going anywhere soon. They gave her a shot of morphine orally as she was in pain, but i said good bye to her and told her i would be in the morning to see her before i leave, she was talking normally and told me she loved me , and to have a safe trip back! we left at 4.30 and got a call at 6pm to say she had passed, there was no autopsy , and i have been filled with un answered questions on this morphine, we stayed another r week to arrange funereal , but I feel so helpless now i am back in USA, I do believe that the morphine killed her in the end, also they never told us she had pneumonia, I am sooo sorry for your loss Sandra this is so tragic. i am left with a tragic loss.

I too lost my precious Mother to the deceptive hands of Hospice... She was placed in a drug-induced Coma right before our very eyes, though we were not aware of what was really happening until it was too late.  They used a combo of drugs, Morphine, Haldol, and Ativan to sedate her to unconsciousness.  This was all done without consent.. Four days after entering Hospice my Mother died in a drug induced coma.. left with no food or water...  I agree this violates civil rights... As far as I am concerned they murdered her...  I am mortified, saddened that we live in a culture that accepts this as OK... It is not OK.. and I will do everything within my power to stop this.... Never should a patient be terminally sedated without the full consent of the patient or the healthcare surrogate.  I cannot understand how this continues to go on underneath the veil of mercy..the autopsy results just came back and it was discovered that my Mother had MRSA Pneumonia in her good lung and this coupled with her lung cancer is what ultimately killed her but the drugs did not help and may have pushed her into death.  The Morphine levels were in the lethal range and the autopsy report said this could have been toxic to her, so my Mother did not stand a chance against Hospice. They took advantage of her during the most fragile and vulnerable time of her life and then without consent chose to sedate her using a combonation of lethal drugs, taking away her freedom of speech.  The MRSA was left untreated by Doctors who were more concerned with me signing a DNR then treating my Mother and the final blow came with Hospice who pegged her as "eminently dying" when all along she needed treatment for pneumonia....  What a shame! I believe my Mother had many days or months ahead of her if the Doctors had only taken the time to diagnose her properly and treat her accordingly.  Instead the Hospice Doctor assumed she was "actively dying" based on her breathing and so they decided to Palliative Sedate her which I believe only hastened her death..... PLEASE Do not allow Hospice to have complete control of your loved one and make sure you know what they are doing to them at all times.... I personally will never use Hospice again for a loved one... It was a horrible experience and I will have to live with this guilt forever... My Mother trusted us and we let her down.... please do not allow this to happen to your loved one.....