After deciding Carsten Flemming Hansen, 75, was too ill for surgery, Danish hospital broke protocol to grant his last request

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A man has been granted his dying wish of a cigarette and a glass of white wine by staff at a hospital in Denmark.

According to a post on the hospital’s Facebook page, Carsten Flemming Hansen, 75, was found to be terminally ill after he was admitted to hospital with an aortic aneurysm and internal bleeding.

Predicting it would be a matter of hours or days before Hansen died, the hospital decided not to operate and instead granted the patient a “dignified” death.

The nurses at Aarhus University hospital decided to defy regulations that stipulated no smoking on the hospital’s grounds and wheeled Hansen out on to a balcony where he smoked a Green LA cigarette and drank a glass of cold white wine while watching the sunset with his family.

In its Facebook post, the hospital said the nurses in Hansen’s ward and his family agreed that in this situation, his last wishes were more important than treatment, prevention and smoking rules.

“It was a very cosy and relaxed atmosphere,” said nurse Rikke Kvist. “Of course there were relatives also affected by the fact he was going to die, and they were sad,” she said.



The hospital’s Facebook post has received almost 70,000 likes, more than 4,500 shares and thousands of comments.

