Discuss the impact that the place in which people die and the type of death may have upon the quality of dying.

In this essay I will define what is meant by the term 'A good death'. Using course materials I shall discuss ways in which people die and also the places where they die and whether this affects their quality of dying.

People see the way people die and the place in which they die as affecting their quality of death. There are many ways in which people die for example, illness disease, accidents, and suicide. There are a myriad of different terminal illnesses and diseases that people die from and where and how each is treated can impact on the quality of death.

The definition of a good death varies depending on people's different cultures and beliefs (Workbook1, p96). This can be illustrated by looking at the Chinese culture where the belief is that people are reincarnated and that there is life after death; death is performed as a ritual and rather than wearing black at their funerals, as the British culture does, they wear white which is a pure colour.

Death version cover

Life or Death (C-Murder album)

Death for Life

All there deaths are seen in a positive manner and therefore is portrayed as a good death (K260 V.C). Some people believe that a good death is dying with a healthy body with no illness or disease, just of old age. Others see it as being cared for and being made as comfortable as possible whilst they die, perhaps by using pain reliving methods. Bradbury (1998) refers to this particular method as medicinal. However, other people see a good death as a person being ready to die, Middleton (2000) agrees that a person should die at home with all their family around to hear the dying person's last words having and dying in no pain (The Reader, p59). Bradbury (2000) explains a bad death as death being uncontrolled, at...