For many of us the answer is pain, but research shows that 90% of all pain is treatable. However, four-fifths of all people in pain at the end of their lives do not have access to pain medication. In the 1960’s Cicely Saunders, founder of the first modern hospice, coined the term “total pain” to describe what she witnessed in her patients—not just a medical event, but a multi-faceted human experience affecting the spirit. There is a crisis of suffering worldwide that must be addressed. My work as a hospice and palliative care nurse is to ensure my patients die in comfort and dignity—but what if I had nothing to offer them to alleviate their pain?
As Third World populations continue to grow in size and poverty, so will the burden of illness and painful deaths. Yet the solution is simple, inexpensive and readily available. So, how can we stand by when so many of our human family die in agony? How is it that we can we readily accept this degree of disconnect with one another?
Please join us in a screening of the film LIFE Before Death. This multi-award winning documentary explores the issue of untreated pain and the need for improved access to palliative care globally. Filmed in 11 countries, LIFE Before Death exposes the suffering going on in the world today as told through the stories of experts in the field and the patients in their care.
PRESENTER: Diane Schade
Diane Schade’s path to being a certified hospice and palliative care nurse has been a winding one. She studied Art History at NYU, catalogued prints at Sotheby Parke Bernet, owned Dede’s Dog-O-Rama in Greenwich Village, traveled for a year through Asia, lived in Madrid, and then moved to Brooklyn to have her child at home and to settle into being a mom. Yoga, meditation and service brought her back to nursing school, where Hospice care became her passion. After developing a palliative care center at Southampton Hospital, she has begun a Nurse Practitioner degree at George Washington University. She lives in Sag Harbor with her husband, daughter (Ali-14) and dog, Candy.