Hospice pioneer William Lamers Jr. dies

"I'm not sick; I'm only dying," a friend told Dr. William Lamers Jr. The man had inoperable cancer and wanted to go home to die, but his doctor wouldn't let him out of the hospital.

It was the early 1970s, when most people with incurable illnesses died in a hospital, in a lonely room, attended by doctors and nurses with no specialized knowledge of the dying patient's emotional and physical needs. There was no system for caring for the dying at home.

The experience opened Lamers' eyes to a major failing of the health care system.

In 1974, Lamers, a psychiatrist, helped start one of the first hospice programs in the United States, Hospice of Marin in Northern California. It helped terminally ill patients spend their last days at home, surrounded by family and supported by health workers and volunteers trained in end-of-life care.

Considered one of the founders of the modern hospice movement in the United States, Lamers died Feb. 2 in Malibu of an infection, his family said. He was 80.

The approach he championed spread across the country. There are now more than 5,000 hospice programs in the United States, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

Lamers "really moved the notion of hospice from a facility to one's home," said Ken Doka, of the Hospice Foundation of America.

In the course of his work, he witnessed hundreds of deaths over the decades. One case he often mentioned was that of a boy with bone cancer whose mother asked him on his final morning what he wanted for breakfast. The boy replied, "A kiss." "You can't top that," Lamers had recalled.

Lamers died at home under hospice care, with family and friends by his side.