ABSTRACT
The local culture of biomedicine in India is characterized by poor organizational structure, weak financing policy and governance. The traditional paternalistic doctor-patient relationship is fast eroding and so also is the element of trust. Death and dying in India takes place within such a weak therapeutic relationship characterized by lack of trust and poor doctor-patient communication. The situation is made worse by biomedicine's inability to adapt itself to the Indian cultural ethos. Although the ancient Indian civilization has long supported a greater openness and acceptance of death as a natural phenomenon, modern India evinces a death-negating attitude borne out of its dependence on biomedicine, with the result that many are left dying in the technological wasteland of intensive care units. Many elderly in India, unable to draw sufficient help from biomedical establishments, lack an inner equilibrium and well-being and find the shortest way out through suicide.
