they cannot make that dicision on thier own
Thats what I thought,but it wasn’t my experience.
When my mother became dangerously ill with pneumonia,the nursing manager told me that my father had recently agreed to her having DNR status. The home’s GP had discussed it with him and it was felt to be the kindest option,considering her poor quality of life.
I was surprised he’d done this,since he absolutely lived for Mum. Also since it was obvious that he was suffering from mild dementia himself,and it could be argued he didn’t have the capacity to make that decision.
What actually happened is that when the nursing manager suggested to Dad that the kindest thing would be to let nature take its course,he became frantic. Couldn’t remember agreeing to DNR,denied that he would ever have agreed to it,and demanded that every effort was made to keep Mum alive.
The nursing manager respected his decision and Mum was rushed to hospital.
After hours of tests and some nursing intervention,the doctor treating Mum asked to speak to me privately.
I explained that technically Mum had been DNR,but Dad had rescinded that status and was desperate for her to have all possible care.
To my astonishment,the doctor told me that Mum was gravely ill,but there was an extremely small chance that they could save her. However in the case of a catastrophic collapse they would take no action. The doctor referred to this as being ” a clinical decision “.
I repeated that Dad’s wishes were that everything humanly possible should be done to save his wife of sixty-seven years,but once again the doctor said that the medical protocol would over-rule that. Specifically,she would be allowed to die if cardiac resuscitation became the only way of saving her.In the doctor’s own words , ” It would be cruel to keep her alive “.
As it happened,by some miracle the hospital pulled Mum through and she died peacefully six weeks later. But this left me in no doubt that doctors do genuinely hold the power of life and death in their hands.
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