That what starts in the UK has a great tendency to make its way over here.
Elderly patients are being condemned to an early death by hospitals making secret use of “do not resuscitate” orders, an investigation has found.
The orders – which record an advance decision that a patient’s life should not be saved if their heart stops – are routinely being applied without the knowledge of the patient or their relatives.
On one ward, one-third of DNR orders were issued without consultation with the patient or their family, according to the NHS’s own records. At another hospital, junior doctors freely admitted that the forms were filled out by medical teams without the involvement of patients or relatives.
I love DNR’s. I’ve got two of them: A “vegetable” one and a “point of no return” one. It’s my not-so-inner nihilist’s medical plan
But if you don’t like DNR’s you should not have one. And you certainly shouldn’t have one secretly filled out by medical staff just because their opinion is that you should.
The British National Health Service: Your care takes their funding and they don’t like that.
Found via CCinZ
Letting the old ( and expensive) patients die as well as not paying doctors is how socialized medicine reduces costs. But high malpractice insurance rates are NEEDEd; we can’t let the ambulance chasers starve, can we? How else wil they support the D party?
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Just a heads up- you likely do not have a DNR. What you probably have is a living will. The difference is crucial:
A living will specifies your wishes in the event that certain conditions are met. For example: “I do not wish to have artificial means to prolong my life in the event that I am in a persistent vegetative state.”
A DNR is a medical order, signed by a physician, and in many states it is a particular form that must be properly filled out under certain conditions.
The difference is that medical personnel, especially EMS, are often prohibited from honoring a living will, but must honor a valid DNR.
My Ultra-Liberal Father openly admits that this is a necessary part of National Healthcare….he just hates to hear people call it a “Death Panel”
Of course “End of Life Counseling” doesn’t fit well when the doctor marks you DNR without your consent….
To expand on Divemedic’s point, even if it is a DNR, in some states (like here in Virginia) those orders are only good in a hospital or nursing home, or possibly for transfers between facilities – EMS cannot honor them. Here in Virginia, up until this year we could only honor an EMS-specific DNR form that was printed by the state, and it had to be the original – we could not even honor photocopies.
Standard rules apply: Check your state and local laws and regulations before trusting it to have the effect you want.