A good friend's father was hospitalized a few years ago with a heart attack and hooked up to machines. The attending doctor didn't think the old man would make it.
My friend, respecting Dad's wishes to not be on machines, signed a paper approving the de-machining and putting the Dad on "comfort care" which (IN GENERAL) is basically no curative care.
That was ok - that was the Dad's wishes.
The old man pulled through, but the hospital refused to put Dad back on fluids or nutrition because - you guessed it - "comfort care" IN THAT HOSPITAL and for THAT DOCTOR is effectively Terri Schaivo-style starvation and dehydration.
They said, food and water was a medical treatment and thus "curative" and AGAINST the rules of "comfort care."
My friend was stunned. And the attending and her team wouldn't budge - ”you signed the document giving consent.”
For the next few days, my friend and siblings heard from scores of nurses etc that withholding fluids was effectively "the right thing to do"....very Terri Schaivo-like. They also threw in “Dad live a good long life” and “he will never come back the way he was.”
It took a virtual miracle whereby a different doctor intervened, said the father clearly wasn't terminal, and put the old man back on nutrition and fluids.
While my friend's Dad passed away peacefully in his sleep a few weeks later, it was on the Dad’s terms.
It’s also worth noting that the siblings were split on “comfort care.” There WAS a view that it was ok for Dad to dehydrate to death. Someone even said that dehydration is painless; I hear the total opposite during the Schaivo murder.
Euthanasia is, technically, illegal. And I know many people would be OK if fluids were withheld when it is THEIR time to go. Fair enough.
But euthanasia can be made legal if you're not careful with the Fine Print or vetting the "mercy killing" mindset of the attending.
We were just in a situation where my mom was in the hospital for a gallbladder removal. She is 92. She had the operation and subsequently got some kind of infection along with retaining water. Hospital at some point ordered nothing by mouth for TWO DAYS while the idiots debated whether it was safe to do a needle procedure to drain water from her abdomen, ultimately deciding it was not safe.
Then wouldn’t switch her diet back to normal food, keeping her on liquids only for a couple days, then told us she needed a feeding tube because “she was starving.” Which, if so, the hospital had contributed to! We said no feeding tube and started bringing in our own gourmet food, since everyone knows hospital food sucks.
Doctor was livid we wouldn’t do a feeding tube and said we were contributing to mom’s death and she (doctor was female) would discharge mom to home hospice. We said fine. This was a two week ordeal.
Mom has now been home for maybe six weeks in care of my sister and is doing better, was not ever “starving” and we are still mystified about this feeding tube recommendation. Anyway, so glad we got her out of the hospital. And yes, doctors think that, at a certain age, it’s been long enough and you might as well drop dead.
Something similar happened a couple of years ago with a close relative. The hospital sent her to a hospice where they were refusing to provide food or water. “We don’t do that.” Granted, she was in bad shape at the time. So we her family brought in food and water until she recovered, which she did recover and has been fine since.
Sadly, what you described happens often. A few years ago, for example, we knew someone who was not terminally ill but needed time to recover. This person was talked into signing a DNR at the hospital, and the ‘palliative care’ team was called in. Gone... within hours.