No Choice without Care: Palliative Care as a Relational Matter, the Case of Ireland

Abstract

In recent years, choice and autonomy have been prioritized as key quality indicators in palliative care services. This article examines current palliative care discourses with respect to patient choice. While recognizing the importance of personal autonomy, using evidence from Ireland, this article explores how a discourse on choice can contribute to inequalities in palliative care because it fails to take account of pre-existing structural inequalities, human relationality, and bodily decline. This article proposes a relational approach to care that takes account not only of the relational lives in those in need of care but also of their careers.