“If you don’t mind, can we start with the patient who has died?”

“But he has died,” I say to the resident, eyeing our long list of the living.

“The family is getting agitated.”

I hear “agitated” and my senses sharpen. We approach the patient’s room, knock and enter as a team.

The death was expected, but its certification hadn’t occurred yet. It had been delayed for several hours for the usual reasons: many patients, too few doctors.

The room is overflowing with family. Despite my apprehension, it is only right that I take responsibility.

“I am sorry for your loss, and especially sorry that it has taken us hours to get here,” I say. “It shouldn’t have been this way.”

The family nods. To my relief, no one looks angry. They are just exhausted.

My eyes settle on the patient, whom I had met on his last admission. He had presented with sepsis and survived against the odds but never recovered enough to return home. Age and frailty, compounded by his equally vulnerable wife, kept him in hospital for weeks while his family searched for a suitable nursing home. He lasted just two days there, barely long enough to become accustomed to the new bed, before being sent back to hospital by ambulance.

This time, sepsis took his life.

It is the only time I have seen him at peace. He looks asleep, without doctors and nurses probing and prodding him. I suspect no one in the room regrets that his........

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