Overseasdaughter: From a palliative point of view I think to feed and hydrate through the PEG tube for the patients comfort is o.k. If the patient declines feeding, they should be able to do so. I found that most patients have very little if any appetite as they near the end of life. Also tube feeding seems to cause increased mucous production although I don't know why. My husband just died last month with a PEG tube insitu and I fed him until 2 days before he died, although at a reduced amount, and gave extra water to keep him hydrated. My rational for doing that was to keep his stength up enough that he would be able to get to the bathroom or to a chair to change his position and to help maintain bowel function. He made his last walk to the bathroom 12 hrs. before he died. This made his care needs easier to manage as well. You could, and probably do use, the PEG tube for administering medications. If your Mom is still in pain with the Morphine patch she should also be receiving breakthrough doses of analgesic every 2 hours until she is pain free. Keep track of how many breakthrough doses are needed in 24 hours and let the Dr. know so that the patch dose can be increased. There should be no excuse for a patient to be in pain if they are properly medicated and it sounds like you have hospice involved already so make sure they get on top of the pain quickly. Hope that little bit of info is helpful for you.