Most aged in India are experiencing a highly protracted death in hospitals, entangled in tubes and machines. Such 'medicalised death' entails huge psychological, social and financial costs for both patients and their caregivers. There are also many who are dying in abject neglect. However, Government response to end-of-life care has been almost negligible and there is an acute information deficit on dying matters.
This book examines different settings where elderly die, including hospitals, family homes and palliative set-ups. The discourse is set in the backdrop of international attempts to restructure and reconfigure the health delivery system for ageing population. It makes critical commentaries on global developments, offers state-of-art reviews of recent advances, substantiates and corroborates facts by personal narratives and case histories. The book overcomes a segmental understanding of the field by weaving various sociological, medical, legal and cultural issues together. Finally, the authors critically examine biomedicine's potential to meet the complex needs of the dying elderly. In an attempt to bring cultural sensitivity in end-of-life care, they explore the lost Indic 'art of dying' which has the potential to de- medicalise death.
Increasing public sensitivity to poor dying conditions of the elderly in India and facilitating changes to improve care systems, this book also demonstrates the limitations of the western specialization of death. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Medical Sociology/Anthropology, Medicine, Palliative care, Public Health and Social Work, Social Policy and Asian Studies.
Autorentext
Suhita Chopra Chatterjee is a Professor in Sociology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India. Her current area of interest is in the field of Death studies. She is the lead editor of Discourses on Ageing and Dying.
Jaydeep Sengupta is a Doctoral candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India, and is formally trained in Anthropology and Development Studies. His areas of interest are Public Health and End-of-life care.
Zusammenfassung
Immer wieder ist Elisabeth Furtwängler gedrängt worden, ihre Erinnerungen an Wilhelm Furtwängler niederzuschreiben. Auf Anregung des amerikanischen Professors Daniel Gillis hat sie dann schließlich im Sommer 1977 ihre Erinnerungen zu gestellten Themen auf Tonband gesprochen. Diese Bänder dienten als Leitfaden für diese Aufzeichnungen. Wilhelm Furtwängler hat sich stets in erster Linie als Komponist gefühlt. Dieses Buch berichtet denn auch einleitend von dem Komponisten Furtwängler, während dem in Deutschland und der Welt gefeierten und später politisch umstrittenen und daher vielfach angegriffenen Dirigenten zwei weitere Aufsätze gewidmet sind. Elisabeth Furtwängler zeigt auf, welch große Bedeutung im Leben ihres Mannes vor allem das Werk Ludwig van Beethovens, aber auch die Opern Richard Wagners hatten. Die Aktualität der Schallplattenaufnahmen von Wilhelm Furtwängler, deren Entwicklung und Produktion im Kampf mit der Technik beschrieben wird, geben heute noch Zeugnis von seiner Interpretationskunst. Ein sehr lebendiges und zugleich persönliches Bild des Komponisten, des Dirigenten und des Menschen Wilhelm Furtwängler jenseits der Programme ist so entstanden.
Inhalt
1. Poverty of Dying in India: A Comparative Landscape
2. Dying in the Homeland
3. Are Indian Hospitals Good Places for the Dying Elderly?
4. The Rhetoric of Dying in Home
5. Is Palliative Care the Answer to Care for the Dying Elderly in India?
6. The Failing Empirics of Biomedicine in Dying Matters
7. End-of-life Care: Retrieving Death from the Zone of Obscurity