Absolutely, all the end-of-life stuff should be worked out while the person in question is competent and able to make his or wishes known.
And all that stuff has been. I’ve got all the paperwork, signed, witnessed, notarized, everything.
But institutions push for blanket DNR orders that give all discretion about end-of-life decisions to the institution. And they’re not getting that from me.
And the DNR push (at every institution) is just unseemly.
I posted back in 2019 (link below) about a rehabilitative medicine place that pushed hard for a DNR. My father had just come out of the hospital for a UTI (like PB_J’s relative), which can make people already suffering from dementia quite loopy. He was released from the hospital to the rehab facility, and literally as they were helping him from the ambulette stretcher into his bed a nurse was pushing me for the DNR, right in front of him. And I mean pushing, relentlessly, to the point where the old man started to freak out and we (my brother was with me) had to ask the nurse to leave the room.
Also, in that other post, I didn’t name the place. I don’t know why – that was Village Care Rehabilitation & Nursing Center, in New York City. They actually did a pretty good job on the rehab stuff during my father’s stay there. But see my earlier post -
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vultures-preying-on-the-elderly/839710?u=saintly_loser