I found the paper by Walter fascinating, and especially the ideas around individualistic societies, such as secular Protestant societies, having very particular notions about a ‘good death’ and how this may contrast with what minority groups living in those societies believe to be a good death. The example of a Hindu describing how their own cultural ideas about a ‘good death’ seem out of place on a ward, where they might make the other patients and doctors feel uncomfortable, made me think about how accepting we, as a society, are to other cultural or religious ideas about death. I believe that living in such a multicultural society as we do, we must be sensitive to others traditions and wishes around dying, however I believe that it’s difficult to do this when we don’t know what different cultures and religions dictate a ‘good death’ to be. I think that, were I to be in hospital or a visiting a loved one who was sick, if I was suddenly confronted with a practice I was unfamiliar with, such as placing a person close to death on the floor with many people around, I would feel confused and perhaps even uncomfortable, purely because I wouldn’t understand what was happening.
I think educating doctors and healthcare professionals on cultural and religious practices surrounding death is essential to make them aware and responsive to the needs of their individual patients. Perhaps in many cultures, where traditions dictate how death should occur and where this is perhaps not supported or widely understood in the society in which they live, the families choose to keep their loved ones at home where they can act as they wish without risking making other patients feel ‘uncomfortable’. But where this is not possible, or in cases where the person is close to death in a hospital, it is the responsibility of the doctors and nurses to understand and accommodate where possible for individual wishes about death and dying.
