ABSTRACT
The Western hospice movement has developed as a reaction to the cure-centred dehumanized treatment of patients and also the mode of human relationships in the care of the dying in hospital, where the doctor-patient relationship is very much central. In the case of the Japanese hospice, however, the notion of the patient-community relationship may not be applicable, because Japanese hospices tend to be expected to develop within hospitals, which are very much doctor-oriented. The existence of the hospice is in a way evidence that people cannot grow strawberries in their own garden, and reinforces the conditions outside the hospice. While the Western hospice movement has widened the doctor-patient relationship, compared with that which takes place in hospital, developing more as a human relationship at a community level, the Japanese hospice may continue with the hospital approach to doctor-centred human relationships.
