Posted on 12/07/2017 5:30:49 PM PST by marshmallow
The family of an 81-year-old woman has received an out-of-court settlement payment and an apology from George Eliot hospital, in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, after they misplaced her Advance Directive to be denied treatment under certain previously defined conditions, reports the BBC.
"Living Will”
Elderly support charity, Age UK, offer an explanation of the Advance Directive, or “living will”, on their factsheet Advance decisions, advance statements and living wills: “The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (‘the Act’) provides a legal framework to empower and protect people who cannot make specific decisions for themselves.”
“There may be a time… when you are unable to make a treatment decision and/or express your wishes. You can make plans in advance for such eventualities by making an advance decision to refuse treatment [aka. an Advance Directive, or living will] and/or making and registering a Lasting Power of Attorney for health and care decisions.”
A “fear of being kept alive”
Brenda Grant made a living will stating she feared degradation and indignity more than death, reports the BBC. She did not tell her children about the living will.
The hospital misplaced the document, and fitted Mrs Grant with a stomach peg so that she could be fed directly, before discharging her into a nursing home. Once there, Mrs Grant became agitated and tried to pull out the tubes in her arm, prompting staff to put mittens on her hands.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnewslive.com ...
So we’ve fallen to the point where people are criticized for NOT starving patients to death?
Jesus needs to come back really soon.
I've had patients beg me for water, soda, food....but they were aspiration risks...and FULL CODES.
We have to give them nutrition....IF they are competent..and refuse these things...Then that is their right.
I've pretty much seen it all....in my years working in hospitals.
What crap. Honoring a dying patients wishes is not starving them to death. I’m glad they lost the lawsuit.
This stuff happens. NG tubes feeding tubes are always pulled and yanked. So many things can go right or wrong. They were trying to keep her alive, she wanted to die. I am in a way glad I got injured in a roit in a hospital because the legalities and other BS is over the top now as it was years ago only exponentially more paper work, less care, hurrah for negligence and apathy.
Prolly kill her to cash the check...
Jesus needs to come back soon?
You just know, at least one person who observed Jesus walking on water would remark “See? He can’t swim!”
A living will is fine, and when a patient knows the situation is terminal and does not want to be a vegetable, having an advance directive - “Living Will” - that lays out, in advance, their own conscious rational demands regarding their treatment when they no longer have the capacity to deliver those demands, is not a bad thing.
My next door neighbor’s mother did as much for her daughter when she still could in her last days. Mom (I helped them often in her last years) was losing her battle with cancer and all medical options were exhausted. She had a couple issues that could have sent her back to the hospital. She asked her daughter and I to do not do that.
She died at home, in her own bed, with her whole family (and I) around her. It was what she wanted.
Did she “take her own life”? Only in the sense of choosing where and choosing what would not be done to merely delay the end with even more harm than good. I do not believe G-d was angry at her choice.
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