unbefriended

There’s a term for people who don’t have anyone to willing to take that role: the “unbefriended”.

Experts describe patients like this one as “unbefriended.”

A hospital staff considers someone unbefriended if family members aren’t available to make decisions.

Sixteen percent of intensive care unit patients in one West Coast hospital were unbefriended, according to a 2007 study for which Dr. White was a co-author.

Another of his studies reported that of I.C.U. patients who died, 5.5 percent were unbefriended or — some ethicists find this a more precise, less stigmatizing term — unrepresented.