醫院應遵循〈安寧緩和醫療條例〉維護病人善終權益

The purpose of medicine is to prevent illness, to cure disease, to relieve suffering and to maintain health. The duty of the physicians and hospitals, of course, is to rescue life, to cure disease, to relieve suffering and to promote health. When a person has reached the end of his life, when death is impending, the duty of medical professionals will be to provide love and humanistic care for the patient, to relieve pain and suffering and provide a peaceful and dignified demise. At the end of terminal care, physicians should maintain a religious and holistic spirit of ＂removal of suffering and provision of happiness＂ to their patients, as much as he could. Provision of hospice palliative care and terminal DNR according to medical ethics and law can ensure peaceful dying of the patients. The use of Taiwan Coma Scale might improve our quality of terminal care at ICU.