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.
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.
My experience was with my mom. She developed cancer and got the whole shooting match of surgery, radiation and Chemo. She then had basically a 5 year remission. At the end of that it came back with a vengeance over the course of another 3 years. Due to the aggressiveness it was showing, they put her on one of the most powerful chemos (carboplatinum) that they can use. That only caused her to develop “chemo brain”, a form of dementia but I think it actually caused a stroke. She was never the same again and did not even recognize my Dad. The disease kept progressing to the point that the cancer had spread to her spine, pelvis and lungs. She ended up in the hospital and they asked myself and my Dad what did we want to do. There is no cure and she was clearly dying but it was dragging itself out and causing her excruciating pain. We then got asked if we would like to do palliative care for her. the palliative doc at the hospital explained what it meant. It is euthanasia. At a certain point, they would make the case to the corporate legal counsel, who would then either green or red light the actual act. We received a phone call around midnight and they said you should come to the hospital. When we got there, she was alone in a two-bed room, unconscious. They said she had just had a morphine shot. After about an hour or so, they called corporate legal to confirm their decision. At 2 am, they came in and gave her another shot, before which, they said to say our goodbyes. I kissed her on the forehead and said I love you, Ma. I then watched for a few minutes and she stopped breathing.
At present, the idea of being hooked up to machines is a ruse to get people to sign DNRs used to allow the killing of patients. I think most people fall for it.
I’ve been helping with elderly relatives in 4 hospital systems and the VA and they are all like this. I would never sign a DNR.