LETTER: Give dying patients a choice

Before I was a registered nurse, I was a respiratory therapist. When I became a hospice nurse, I cared for many respiratory patients due to my background.

What many people do not understand, including Gov. Joe Lombardo, is that not all hospice patients have pain with dying. Many people die of respiratory diseases: ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), end stage COPD, pulmonary fibrosis and so many other lung diseases. Many of these patients are terrified of dying of suffocation. Many times medications and high-flow oxygen can no longer help. These people should have a right to die and to not suffer the last few days or weeks of their lives.