Ethnic Patients Bypass End-of-Life Care

Los Angeles, CA. – Mark Nguyen (not his real name) says he would never dream of moving his sick mother out of the familiarity of her southern California home and into a nursing home, or even enrolling her in home hospice care, even if her condition were to deteriorate. In the Vietnamese culture to which he belongs, that’s not how it’s done.

“To her, that would amount to abandonment,” says Nguyen of his 68-year-old mother who, for the last three years, has been suffering from a slew of illnesses, including cancer of the liver, blood infection and an enlarged heart. “Going to a hospital, or getting into a hospice program, that would be the last thing she would want.”

Nguyen’s and his mother’s feelings about end-of-life care aligns with a report released March 16th by the California HealthCare Foundation, a philanthropic institution that seeks to improve the state’s health care delivery system. Titled, “Racial, Cultural and Ethnic Factors Affecting the Quality of End-of-Life Care in California,” the report examines the causes and patterns of death and dying among various ethnic communities.

The findings are important because the number of people dying from prolonged chronic diseases is rapidly increasing, said Judy Citko, executive director of California Coalition for Compassionate Care.

Often living without any form of medical care, Asian immigrants, as well as Latinos, African Americans and other ethnic minorities, are less likely to use hospice and palliative care services to assuage their suffering than whites, according to the report.

Medicare and most private insurance companies require a life-expectancy prognosis of six months or less to be eligible for hospice services. It is given when the doctor confirms that the person is dying, said Susan Keller, executive director of the Santa Rosa-based Community Network for Appropriate Technologies, which is trying to make the journey to death more comfortable. It is only given at the final stages of life says Keller.

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