 The sickest patients may both crave and fear solitude. When alone they come face-to-face with the potentially cruel reality of impending death. Yet in company they may feel patronized or guilty about the burdens they impose on family and friends. Whether the suffering is the agony of injury, childbirth, recovering from major surgery or dying, persons may feel that they should not have to deal with others while in such a state or at such a time. Implicit social norms validate deferring to wishes of the sick or dying for seclusion and solitude (Post 1989; Nissenbaum 2009). These wishes may arise and be violated not only in hospital, hospice or nursing home settings, but also in mental hospitals and prisons, where panoptic policies of monitoring and surveillance prevail (Bozovic 1995; Holmes and Federman 2006: 16–17; Foucault 1977).