'No One Is Coming.' Hospices Are Abandoning Their Patients

As her husband lay moaning in pain from the cancer riddling his body, Patricia Martin searched frantically through his medical bag, looking for a syringe.

She had already called the hospice twice, demanding liquid morphine to ease the agony of Dr. Robert E. Martin, 66. A family practice physician known to everyone as “Dr. Bob,” he had served the small, remote community in Wasilla, Alaska, for more than 30 years.