When hospice care goes wrong, where can you turn?
When our mother died last month, after a bungled transfer from hospital to residential hospice care that caused her unnecessary pain and distress, my siblings and I briefly considered suing.
It wasn’t about money. As my sister said at the time, it just didn’t seem right to let the hospice agency — which acknowledged and apologized for its failures — keep operating the same way without being held accountable.
But a drawn-out court battle didn’t seem like much of a solution.
Was there another option?
Yes, said Charlene Harrington, a professor at the UC San Francisco nursing school and a former official with the state Department of Public Health. For years, Harrington has been one of California’s chief elder care advocates and a critic of the lack of regulatory oversight and useful information for consumers.