In the Midst of Life

This is a most profound and informative book about how we as a society care about our terminally ill people and how they die. It is also a book about our cultural fear of death.

Like Jennifer I was also a nurse and midewife in the 60s and 70s and worked as a bank nurse at the Royal Marsden in Sutton Surrey. Many of the people and situations she talks about are familiar to me and I remember the Salmon Report very well and the changes it brought. Not all for the good, especially when we see how nursing has gone nowadays. It would seem that society over the last three four decades has lost its compassion replaced it with fear - a fear of death - in particular of being alone when we die.

Jennifer graphically illustrates all of this through her own personal experiences, and how she would stand up to the doctors to try and protect patients from being overwhelmed with modern technology in order just to keep them alive at any costs, no matter what quality of life afterwards.

I was lucky enough to meet in the 80s, Dame Cicely Saunders who founded the hospice movement in this country. Without her's and Dr Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' work back in the 50s terminally ill people would not have the right care and attention they so desperately need today - she changed how doctors provide much needed pain relief.

Jennifer highlights with factual information how we have moved from allowing people to die a natural death without modern intervention, to one where it would seem that a person is not allowed to die gracefully and with dignity.

This is a book that shows that with compassion, proper nursing care and good pain relief, this is the right way to care for terminally ill people, and not saving a person just because modern technology says that you can. Quality of life is important as Jennifer shows us with her anecdotal stories and factual information.

A book that I more than highly recommend.

Sadly Jennifer Worth died this Spring 2011 from a short illness.