What's proper care?

The following was my recently printed letter to the Editor. I felt it bore repeating on my blog. When you are halfway healthy, waking up with a dry mouth is not just annoying, but quite uncomfortable. For most of us, the treatment is just reaching for that glass of water we put on our night stand the evening before. Now let's change the circumstances. You're in a room. You have a morphine drip in your arm. The note beside your bed says 'palliative care'. You're dying. The staff wants to comfort you. Your family wants to comfort you. The staff doesn't always have the time. The family doesn't have the training. You are in a state of semiconsciousness from the morphine, which is keeping you from heavy pain. Your are also unable to communicate or really be aware of just how dry your mouth is. No one helps you, not out of meanness, but out of time constraints and ignorance, both forgivable. A few half teaspoons of water gently placed inside your lips, so simple yet so fearful if you've never had to do it before. Is this perhaps what Dr. Kevorkian wanted us to see? Was his method so much more horrible than days of the above? marge