Dying in Public: The Nature of Dying in an Acute Hospital Setting

Despite the assumption that the home is the preferred place of death, most people will die in institutional care, specifically in acute hospital wards. Inevitably, this relatively public setting puts the privacy and dignity of the dying patient and grieving visitors at considerable risk. Our study used observation of practice and staff interviews to describe the process of recognizing, communicating, and managing dying on an acute medical gerontology ward in a large teaching hospital in the United Kingdom. The particularly public nature of hospitals in the United Kingdom is critically examined in the light of privacy as a fundamental component of maintaining dignity and the “good death.”