Death Doula/Soul Midwife

I think it’s another of these “fashionable’ things that come and go
Doula is a dreadful sounding name for anything birth, marriage death and do you really want a person paid to sit with you at the end, it reminds me of when I lived in the Far East and people with not many family members paid people to weep and wail behind the coffin
Hopefully avfamily member, a friend, a Chaplin, or nurse but a person paid to sit with me feels so false why would you want a stranger with no personal ties to you who is only doing it as a job sitting with you

(Paddyann my daughter has told her teenage kids that if she ever goes in a home they are under strict instructions to make sure she gets no whiskers)

It is Greek and means female servant!

I AM SO SORRY I BROUGHT THAT ON FOR YOU paddyann. ( )

Ha ha ha gonegirl my own fault for sharing the mousetache removal

Oh and can I say again I DIDN'T PLUCK HER HAIRS ,I removed them gently as requested .You;d think I assaulted her by the remarks
you could hire yourself out paddyann

That’s even worse Pecs a ‘Death female servant
Isn’t that sexist in the t8mes of equality

I think it must have been around in the 70's.
Dexy's midnight runners even made a song about one called Ray..
"Doula, doula, doula, doula Ray!"

Oh you are so naughty MissA

MissA

Paddyann that sounds a lovely end.

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Luckygirl

It just seems a bit on trend to me. Round here, MacMillan nurses (who do not just deal with cancer) and the hospice at home service fulfil those roles - and very splendidly too. I assume that the same exists in other parts of the country. There is no need to pay for it.

We were talking to the doc from the hospice the other day, when she came to visit us, and she was very reassuring indeed about this as OH was saying that in the event he starts to fail he wants to be kept at home as far as possible.

MacMillan were unable or unhelpful when my mother was dying. I tried to arrange support for her, they provided nothing.

MacMillan were hopeless with my DMIL when she was dying of cancer. In fact, the whole system seemed to break down for her. However, my next door neighbour had MacMillan Nurses in and they were wonderful. I think it is the luck of the draw.
When my grandad was on the Liverpool Pathway, the nurses on the ward were absolutely wonderful and supportive to me too. We had no need of a Death Doula!

MissAdventure

Certainly in care homes it would be incredibly useful for people with nobody.

I am a carer and I have never heard of this…

I suppose Chaplains in hospitals take over this kind of 'duty'. Do they have secular ones though? Last think I'd want is someone pushing their religion on me at that stage of all stages.

I certainly would not have used you when my daughter was dying, she didn’t know. They moved her out of intensive care into a very small ward and she thought because they had done this she was getting better. So no we wouldn’t have used your services. Also i think it’s a time for family and they give the support to each other. Maybe if there was no one else it might be a different case, but I wouldn’t want it for myself.

I heard a thing about this on radio 4 a few years ago, I think it would depend a lot on personality to match the family to the “death doula” . The name is very off putting in my view.

In our care home if a family member or members aren’t available to sit with the dying person a member of staff always does they are never left alone….

What does a death doula actually do? Just interested.

I know that what a widowed friend, left on her own, really valued was a brother coming to help her with the mass of paperwork, selling the car etc. (she doesn’t drive).

Gonegirl

Imagine at breakfast. "See they've got the dd in today then. Who d'you reckon that's for?".

Toddlers from the local playgroup on Tuesdays, penguins on Thursdays, death doula on Saturdays.

Classic jings

I have been (I dare say wrongly) prejudiced against Macmillan ever since they sent a very brisk, no-nonsense (female) doctor to visit a friend who was all alone at the time, to tell her very briskly that she was going to die, and did she want to die at home, in hospital, or in a hospice?
Although she knew, my friend was a fighter to the end, and really did not need this.

It is an interesting topic, and relevant today just as much as in 2019. Why close it?

By close do you mean delete? Why?

Lots of threads are resurrected