Elderly Japanese `Go To The Afterlife Quietly` At Home Rather Than Hospital
(WorldNews Japan)

After he was diagnosed with leukaemia in July, Katsuo Saito decided not to treat it and opted for palliative care. He had a hard time finding a bed at a hospice or hospital, so he spent most of his remaining weeks at home, Reuters reports. `There are about 20 people on the waiting lists,` Saito, 89, told Reuters from his fifth-floor apartment in Tokyo where he lived alone. Many Japanese are reluctant to die at home because they feel hospitals are safer and they don´t want to burden family members with caring for them. But dying at home may prove an acceptable option as hospital beds become ever scarcer in an ageing society where one in four are over 65 and health officials predict a...