More people are dying at home. Is that a good thing?

More people are dying at home. Is that a good thing? 
The Wall Street Journal; by Suniat Puri; 7/11/24 
New research classifies the rise in home deaths as progress, but we need to look closely at what these death look like. In photos taken a year before we met, my patient smiled widely, flashing a peace sign, her feet planted in the damp sand of a local beach. “Mom was a firecracker,” her daughter told me. My patient, who now slurred her sentences, was dying of cirrhosis. Her jaundiced skin was golden, the corners of her pale lips crusted with dried blood. She wanted to die at home, according to her daughter, who had been estranged but re-entered her mother’s life to care for her. I was still in my training in palliative medicine and, like my patient’s daughter, I believed that a “good death” took place at home, surrounded by family. I shared her view that a hospital death was a failure, painful and undignified. I was glad to help her leave behind uncomfortable tubes and noisy machines for a death I presumed would be more peaceful. [Subscription may be required to continue reading.]