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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Unlike terminally ill patients who die in hospitals, attached to tubes and monitors, Marie Madison wants to die in the comfort of her home.
The 97-year-old woman, diagnosed with acute respiratory failure in January, is the first in her family to receive home hospice care, with nurses from New Beacon Hospice in Birmingham checking on her twice a week and on call 24 hours. She also is a black person who chose an end-of-life service that minorities have tended not to use as frequently as whites.
Blacks seek hospice care in disproportionately smaller numbers than whites partly because of cost, health insurance and cultural factors, including a sense of being denied medical care on the basis of race, according to health care specialists.
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