(18th February 2009; inserted later because I am away)

A colleague not in the palliative care world has recently been admitted to hospital with cancer and died after only a short admission; it seems that she did not want visits from work colleagues, and people are shocked that she did not seek treatment earlier. As I read the paper on the journey home, this connects in my mind with the commentary on Jade Goody, the reality tv star who has announced she is now suffering from terminal cervical cancer, and plans to get a lot of well-paid publicity from her impending marriage and death ‘in public’, as the paper puts it, to fund her children’s future.

That’s a legitimately personal choice. How people die, who they want alongside them as they do so and how they get themselves through the process ought not to be subject to others’ demands. I was always taught that you could invite who you like to your wedding and nobody was entitled to be aggrieved; is that the same as your death? You can be generous about who is allowed in, but why should you be?