In our modern age, death has become over-medicalized, and the “human” has been removed from the process. Enter a new kind of wellness practitioner: the death doula, caregivers who give the dying full physical, emotional and spiritual support and fill that serious gap in care between medicine and hospice.
Read a new conversation with Henry Fersko-Weiss, a true pioneer of the death doula movement and president of the International End-of-Life Doula Association (INELDA). He discusses everything from what’s the most important thing death doulas provide to why you can’t have a good death if you haven’t lived a well life.
Thank you for highlighting this important topic. There are a growing number of people that don’t have a support system for end of life care. Too many people are afraid to have a conversation about this topic and plan for what they want. Having a trained, experienced person be there to ensure a personal and caring presence is available for them during the last part of their life is so important. Western society tends to ignore end of life issues. We often don’t think of this as wellness or wellbeing. But wellbeing applies to all stages of life, even at the end. With many countries facing an aging workforce and an aging population, more organizations need to bring this conversation into the workplace. More of their employees will be caregivers and dealing with this issue. Organizations should think about benefits to support these employees and provide training to management to better support their caregiver team members.