A Danish hospital temporarily suspended its rules last week to allow a dying man his final wish: a glass of white wine and a cigarette.
Carsten Flemming Hansen, 75, was admitted April 3 to Aarhus University Hospital, suffering from an aortic aneurysm and internal bleeding, Danish newspaper BT reported. He was too ill to undergo surgery, and doctors predicted he had only days left to live.
Hansen told hospital officials that he had one final wish: to have one last Green LA cigarette and a glass of wine.
“It was the best thing for him. It meant a lot to him throughout life,” Hansen’s daughter, Mette Gold Bech Demuth, told BT. “He was annoyed that he wasn’t allowed to smoke inside. He really wanted to have his very last cigarette.”
Despite hospital rules that forbid smoking, nurses in the vascular surgery ward and Hansen's family "agreed that, in this situation, Carsten Hansen's wants were more important than treatment, prevention and smoking rules," the hospital said in a Facebook post. They took Hansen up to a balcony, where he and his family had a view of the sunset while Hansen smoked and drank his wine.
"It was a very cozy and relaxed atmosphere," nurse Rikke Kvist said, according to The Guardian. "Of course there were relatives also affected by the fact he was going to die, and they were sad."
Hansen died Friday, officials from the Aarhus University Hospital said.
Demuth said family members were grateful that the hospital was willing to be flexible for her father.
“I can’t thank them enough,” she told BT. “They have really been a great support to my father and the family throughout the process. I am just so grateful.”
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