Going home.

Abstract

Because most deaths during the early years of the 20th century occurred in the home, many people had direct and personal experiences with dying. That's no longer the case. Two and a half million people die in this country every year, most in hospitals, where keeping terminally ill people alive seems to be more important than allowing them to die with dignity. Death, at one time a family and community affair, has become a medical event, a technological battlefield often leading to a prolonged and unwittingly cruel death. Why?