And, lemme ask, since you’re here. If a person isn’t able to communicate and one can’t verify a legally signed POA4H, doesn’t the health care decision making fall to the spouse, then the eldest child and so on down the line like good ol’ primogeniture laws? Or does that not apply for perimedicine?
Has anyone ever *won *a “Wrongful Life” suit (of the kind we’re talking about here, not the disabled child kind)? I remember it being brought up in an ethics class as having happened locally once, and the case was dismissed.
My dear friend’s father, 80, had been on dialysis for over 4 years when he took a turn for the worse and was placed in a nursing home. He told everyone that he was ready to die and had a DNR order drawn up.
A few months later, a nurse found him unconscious and called the EMTs. They automatically began CPR, even though they were made aware of the DNR order. As they were in transit, the nurse placed a call to my friend to tell her what had happened and to ask her for guidance on whether to try and continue to revive him. At first, my friend ordered them to continue resuscitation attempts. However, when the nurse explained that when she found him, his pupils were fixed and unresponsive to light, my friend told them to stop.
I’m not sure if they followed the exact legal protocol, but this is how his family-run nursing home handled it.