Opinion piece by the Portuguese Observatory on Palliative Care.
When death is an emergency: the challenge of dying with dignity
Even without knowing how to name it, we all want the same thing: to reach the end with dignity. And it is at this moment, as intimate as it is difficult, that teams that make a difference come into play: firefighters, technicians, nurses, and doctors from pre-hospital emergency teams.
We tend to associate them with sirens, accidents, and lives hanging by a thread. But we rarely think that the end of life can also be, and so often is, an emergency. An emergency for those who are leaving and, above all, for those who remain.
