06/06/2025
Accurate information during home hospice care is key!
Morphine doesn’t kill people. Pain does.
But in hospice, fear often wins.
Families whisper:
“Won’t it speed things up?”
“Can’t we wait until the very end?”
“I don’t want them to sleep through the goodbye.”
We get it. You’re scared. You love them.
But withholding morphine doesn’t preserve life.
It prolongs suffering.
Here’s the truth:
• The standard starting dose of liquid morphine (Roxanol) is 5mg—roughly equivalent in effect to one tablet of Norco 5/325 (hydrocodone + acetaminophen).
• Sublingual morphine begins working in 15–30 minutes, peaks at ~1 hour, and lasts 2–4 hours.
• When appropriately dosed and titrated, morphine rarely causes respiratory depression—even in frail, terminal patients. In one study of 27,000, the risk was
