https://www.npr.org/2023/07/10/ [login to see] /when-hospital-staff-refused-to-give-a-dying-man-pain-medication-a-manager-steppe
In 1986, Dorothy Tiernan's father was dying of cancer. On what would be the last day of his life, Tiernan and her family gathered around his bed at the hospital.
Her father was unable to communicate. But his family sensed he was in pain, because he was writhing around in his bed.
"It was incredibly distressing to experience the helplessness that I felt in wanting him to be comfortable, and having no way to be able to do this, no way to be able to help him," Tiernan recalled. "And I remember asking one of the nurses, his nurse, 'Please, can he have some more medication, please? Can he have more morphine?'"
She will never forget the nurse's response.
"'Well, no, he's not supposed to get it. He has to wait for the full four hours and I can't really give it to him now. And it really should be enough for him.'"