Posted on 08/20/2014 8:41:56 AM PDT by wagglebee
Euthanasia. Rationing. Assisted Suicide. These are the kinds of concerns the pro-life community brought up when Congress pushed through Obamacare and government-run health care. These concerns are already becoming real in the Untied States, but a new story out of the United Kingdom should give Americans a hint as to what’s next.
Nurses who are a part of in-home health care programs for the sick, elderly and disabled are coming forward to say they’ve been told to ask such patients not if they need medical help but if they need assistance in killing themselves.
The nurses say patients are asked via a form if they want to sign a DNR order making it so no efforts would be made to save their lives in emergency circumstances.
The elderly patients are given these forms and asked these questions as a part of Britain’s NHS program, the government-run health care scheme. Experts fear patients will feel pressured into giving consent to avoid trouble.
The forms were sent to patients in June and then returned to their doctors and they target patients over 75 and patients with long-term medical conditions — both of whom may be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives to ration their health care.
The London Daily Mail newspaper has more:
Nurses are visiting the elderly at home to see whether they would agree to a ‘do not resuscitate’ order.
They are asking patients they have never met sensitive medical questions, including what should happen if their health suddenly fails.
A ‘do not resuscitate’ – DNR – order instructs doctors not to try to restart a heart that has stopped beating.
The questionnaires are part of an NHS England scheme to improve care of the elderly and keep them out of hospital. It is not clear why DNR is on the forms.
Medical experts fear vulnerable patients will feel pressured into giving their consent simply to avoid causing trouble.
Peter Carter of the Royal College of Nursing said: ‘I have never heard of anything like it. These questions are usually only asked when the nurse has developed a good and meaningful relationship with the patient.
‘Only then will the nurse begin broaching these difficult subjects.
‘It is truly extraordinary within a few minutes of meeting someone to ask them where they want to die and to sign a form. Nurses shouldn’t be put in that position.’
Roy Lilley, a health policy analyst whose mother was visited by a nurse with the form, described the policy as callous.
‘Elderly, frail but otherwise healthy people are being asked, by complete strangers, to sign a form agreeing they shouldn’t be resuscitated,’ he said. ‘It is outrageous. People will be frightened to death thinking the district nurses know something they don’t and will feel obliged to sign the form so as not to be thought a nuisance.
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Nurse: Can I kill you?
Patient: Yes, but I don’t want to vote Democrat after I’m gone!
“Nurses are visiting the elderly at home to see whether they would agree to a ‘do not resuscitate’ order”
Nurse: “would you be interested in signing this DNR order”
Patient: “why yes deary, I’ll sign that for you”
Nurse: “why thank you love”
Patient: “may I have lunch now”
Nurse: “ why no, that might resuscitate you.”
If this is surfacing, it sure makes you wonder what is not being reported.
No,can I kill you?
“Well, yes. Obviously you CAN kill me. But you may not.”
Why are we acting like DNR orders are big news? This goes on every day here in the States. My dad was admitted to home hospice care in April for CHF and COPD. One of the first questions the hospice nurse asked was, “You don’t want to be resuscitated in case of a medical emergency, right?”
This already goes on here. Nursing homes and hospitals pressure elderly patients to sign DNR papers. My mother had this happen to her. She had already signed an Advance Directive which stated she WANTED to be resuscitated ... but ‘social workers’ came into her room when no family was around late at night and asked her to sign some papers.
I don’t know if they explained what the papers were but I bet they did not for if she were of sound mind she would not have signed them. The next morning family visiting her noticed she had a DNR paper bracelet on her wrist. She did not know what that meant and was in a confused state of mind due to the drugs she was on. I cut the tag off of her wrist and went in search of the DNR order, which took me a day and a half to get a hold of.
Do not think this doesn’t already happen here. If you have loved ones in the hospital or nursing home, be vigilant.
If they have signed a DNR when of sound mind then fine. But many have not signed one and still end up with a DNR order.
People in nursing homes and their relatives are strongly pressured to get a DNR order signed. If the patient has a medical power of attorney, they pressure that person to change the Advance Directive to a DNR if it is not already so.
My mother made me medical power of attorney so that they could not do this to her again should I not be there when they come around with ‘papers’ for her to sign.
We in the US have had that emergency end of life thing with no Resusitation for decades, it’s called a ‘living will’.
Obamacare operates through state non profit organizations they have set up, and DSS will transfer a person (once all their money is used up) to one of those places for end of life planning. They have very positive names about hope and change for future etc, the opposite of what’s gonna happen stuff. To keep families and friends to not see real agenda.
Well, who could have seen that coming. And you had better believe that there will be “metrics” on this, with some nurses getting performance raises for “cost avoidance”.
Frankly, I don’t see a “good” way to solve these problems. They can keep a body alive indefinitely at this point, long after that person had any hope of any kind of conscious recovery. DNR’s are a reality here and have been so for some time.
I’ve actually considered, what would happen if you got “rewarded” (like, a life insurance policy for your family) for doing a DNR. This also sounds ghoulish, but...what IS the solution..?
I’m not sure the headline is quite right on this. A DNR is a far cry different than actively killing someone.
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