The experience of a woman in Shanghai who sent her cancer-stricken father to a hospice ward, facing pressure from relatives for not arranging further medical treatment, has triggered a debate about dealing with the end-of-life process in China where discussions about death remain taboo.
The woman, identified as Erika, and born in the 1980s, was an only child. Her mother passed away nine years ago after a long battle with lung cancer that spread to her lymph nodes, according to a report on the streaming app Pear Video.
At the beginning of this year, her father was diagnosed with prostatic carcinoma and intestinal cancer. After arranging for him to have a range of medical consultations, Erika made the difficult decision to send him to a hospice institute in May, where he died two months later.
“I have made adequate preparations for treating my father, including the fund for medical costs. But medicine can’t save him. It is not my fault,” Erika said at the time.
She said she took her father to several appointments where he was given a variety of physical checkups at Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Centre, one of the best medical centres in China.
Doctors told Erika that her father was in the advanced stage of cancer, with tumour cells already spreading to many parts of his body.
“Doctors said his condition was so serious that they could not do any surgeries or apply chemotherapy. It equalled a death penalty for my father,” said Erika. “I concluded that I should find a place where he would endure less pain. It is a hospice, and patients staying there are made as comfortable as possible while waiting for the moment of death.”
During that difficult time, she received no support from her relatives when it came to making the hospice arrangements. In fact, they called and urged her to seek more medical treatment.
“They told me to spare no effort to keep my father alive. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have anyone in the world to care about. I told them, ‘What’s the point of letting a dying person live in pain’,” Erika said.
The difference of opinion about what was in the best interests of Erika’s father caused a rift in the family and Erika says she is now estranged from her relatives.
She believes they have described her as a “white-eyed wolf”, a Chinese term for an ungrateful person, but she is defiant.
“I don’t care about what my relatives say about me behind my back. It doesn’t matter to me,” she said.
Erika’s decision to send her father to a hospice for palliative care has been hotly debated since the story was viewed 4 million times on Weibo in mid-November.
“It’s the most correct decision. If I were the patient, I would also prefer to stay in a hospice ward,” said one internet observer.
“If a person doesn’t hope to bear the anguish any longer and wants to die as soon as possible, sending him to the hospice facility is a form of filial piety,” another said.
“If the offspring doesn’t consider the old man’s pain but insists on spending a lot of money on medical treatment such as inserting tubes in his body and doing surgeries and chemotherapy time and again, with the sole aim of exhibiting filial piety, then that is not genuine love,” the observer added.
“She did a good job… and is the person who feels saddest,” another said.
Others disagreed with one saying: “I admire her but I won’t do what she did. My mum is in the mid-stage of lung cancer. I will do whatever I can to save her.”
Last month, the interaction between a father and a daughter at a hospital in northern China’s Hebei province captivated social media.
The father was filmed walking away from the hospital determinedly, insisting he did not want further medical treatment because it would be a financial burden for his daughter.
The daughter was seen chasing after him before kneeling down to beg him to have the treatment. “Dad, I only have you left in this world,” the woman was heard shouting tearfully.