Why are DNR's not banned and why is there still talk about legalizing euthanasia?

freqflyer, I don't understand your post. Your father died of aspiration pneumonia because he couldn't swallow and needed a feeding tube? Why couldn't he swallow?

rovana, I don't like your attitude. Am I joking? No I'm NOT joking and I don't appreciate you asking that. Murder has been going on since before DNR's? Is that your argument? I told you my sister didn't want the inheritance to be spent on nursing care when he got older, and she didn't want to take care of him when he did, as my 2 brothers didn't either. I was taking care of him, doing chores around his house, and would have had no problem giving personal care as he got older. Nobody asked me, they just wanted the inheritance.

Rovana, he got the pneumonia from the period when he was in shock from the cocktail of sedatives, beta blockers, and morphine, which they gave him in an attempt to euthanize him, when they saw he had a DNR. I wrote about it earlier. In shock, you don't swallow, so you inhale your own saliva, which often causes pneumonia. It's called aspirational pneumonia.

MDWright, so sorry to you and your family for the passing of your Dad.

Please note that pneumonia is not contagious. But the germs that cause the flu or a cold are. Even if the flu/cold are mild it can turn into Mycoplasma pneumonia, or a person might have had aspiration pneumonia where food and water go into the lungs instead of into the stomach.

Aspiration pneumonia took my Dad very quickly. A couple days prior he was up and about, joking, reading, etc. After a test for aspiration there wasn't anything more the doctor could do to help him. At 95 my Dad didn't want a feeding tube. Dad had a DNR in place as he didn't want the chance of being in a coma.

But he went to the hospital to get treatment so what does the pneumonia have to do with a DNR? Hospitals are dangerous places and going into one is risky, even for a routine lab test. As for the murder issue - are you joking? Murder has been going on since Cain and Abel - long before DNRs were ever thought of. And as for your sister - well slavery was abolished a while ago and if she was afraid she would have to take care of Dad, she was perfectly free to just say "no". I did, and I have no regrets. ( Parents had the money and they were free to spend it as they wished and I had to work to avoid ending up in the gutter.) There was no need for your sister to resort to murder.
I think your political orientation is causing sloppy thinking.

He died 2 days later in rehab, of pneumonia he picked up in the hospital.

I don't know if this is a state thing or federal, but here in NY, the DNR can be signed by the healthcare proxy if the patient is not able to. My younger brother was proxy. I don't know why, but the hospital sedated my father the second day he was there, so he was groggy and "out of it", and my brother signed the DNR. The night before, I was in the hospital visiting my father, he had spent the entire day reading after undergoing test after test all night, and they found nothing wrong except AFIB. When I got there, my father was reading Ann Taylor novels, as I had brought him a stack of 5 of her novels that morning and he was starting the second one. So he read an entire book in one day. Doesn't sound like he was dying, does it? That evening, my older brother called and said "Did you hear Dad's in the hospital, he went there to die and he's going to be dead soon." I told him, "He didn't go there to die, I'm the one who took him there, and I've been with him all day. All he has is AFIB." My brother hung up on me! He didn't know I was the one who took him there. Later, that same brother called back trying to argue with me, arguing that Dad went there to die. My sister also said "We don't want him to get old and feeble like Granny was, she was miserable." My grandmother was 97, legally blind from ARMD, almost deaf, and very senile, and needed to be bathed. OK fine, Dad doesn't want that either, but Dad was 92, not deaf, not blind, and his mind was sharp as a tack, he was taking care of himself including cooking and washing dishes, I mowed the lawn, he did everything else, including walking his dog. He was even planting a garden. He still drove a car and called Pea Pod for groceries. He was online all the time and emailing everybody his political ideas (all conservative). But my sister wanted to end his life so she would not have to take care of him when he got old and feeble, and was worried about his spending the inheritance on nursing care. My brothers wanted to end his life, because they wanted the inheritance. Next morning, my younger brother, the one who was proxy, was there getting my father to sign his life away, so my brother read the DNR to my groggy sedated father, and then signed it in front of the nurse. These two brothers are executors of the estate and wanted the inheritance. They killed an old man for his money. It was HIS money, the money he worked all his life to save up. They were all employed and capable of making their own money, they did not need his. But they killed him to get his money. And they hated his politics, as he was a vocal conservative and and ex personal friend of Ayn Rand, but my siblings are, all 3 of them, flaming liberals, similar to the Antifa who riot against conservatives. That's why they killed him, similar to the reason Stalin and Mao killed millions of people......to get their money. This never would have been possible if it weren't for DNR's.

The way they killed him was by sedating him, giving him morphine 6 times a day when he was not in pain, and taking the sugar out of his IV. But I reversed all this.........no morphine, no sedatives, and put the da## sugar back in his IV, get him some solid food.......... and my father got 100% better.

I am in AZ, so this may be a State law, you can not have a DNR signed by anyone other than the holder of DNR and their primary care physician must also sign it, period. If this protocol is not followed, the DNR is not valid. Simple enough in my opinion, who in their right mind would take the decisions of a hospital patient, obviously very sick or emergency ie accident, stroke whatever, to make life ending choices. I personally have been so sick that I felt death was the only answer, yet I recovered and was quite happy I didn't die. So I don't think any hospital generated DNR would be acceptable.

MDwright I hope that you have involved law enforcement to get the unethical professionals prosecuted for what they did to your dad. The charts will reveal the truth and even though it will not bring your dad back, you could be saving others from the same heart break.

That article is seven years old.

As a loyal reader of the Torygraph (as we affectionately call it), I have to tell you that Laura Donnelly is the second silliest medical journalist in the mainstream press. The first silliest is her colleague, Sarah Knapton.

More recently - the week before last, in fact, on a Friday afternoon - I reported my layman's concern about a friend I'd visited to the hospital's safeguarding team. The report was followed up that day and the patient, whether it's a coincidence or not, is now doing very well. The NHS has been teetering on the brink of collapse for the whole of the forty years I've been paying attention to it, but its POVA (Protection of Vulnerable Adults) system is working fine. Probably better than it ever has been.

Here's one article documenting the abuse of DNR in the United Kingdom's socialized medicine:

telegraph.co.uk/news/health/elder/8829350/Elderly-patients-condemned-to-early-death-by-secret-use-of-do-not-resuscitate-orders.html

Prolife, morally, there is no problem with a patient signing a DNR or refusing medical care that they consider unduly ineffective, burdensome, painful, expensive, etc. etc. The Christian moral theology allows one to refuse extraordinary care - and keep in mind that this is what a layman would consider extraordinary - not necessarily how a neurosurgeon, for example, would define extraordinary. So please do not imply that the Christian religion dictates using every conceivable means to prolong life. It is not true.
Now obviously, abuse can occur - with almost anything you could imagine, but Flowgo was proposing to end the possibility of DNRs signed by individuals who wanted to sign them. The fact that something can be abused does not mean that it has to be abolished. And frankly what people here are describing seems to me to fall in the category of medical malpractice, mercy killing, murder, or just plan Murphy's Law. What does a DNR have to do with it?

MDWright, do you have a link regarding Affordable Care Act medical insurance does not pay for patients who have DNR's on file? Just curious as I have not read same.

According to the AHA, only 18 percent of U.S. hospitals are private, "for-profit" hospitals. 

MDWright, here are some of the 109 comments made by Flowgo, you need to click on "Answers" to see the comments.  The rest of Flowgo comments are no longer in history, but it is noted that 109 answers had been made to the forums.  https://www.agingcare.com/members/flowgo

McAlvie, I never said DNR's started with Obamacare. I said abuse of them did. Who misquotes somebody and argues them about what they didn't say?

And equating your father (who declined and died) and mine (who was healthy and killed) makes no sense. Who equates two completely different things?

You appear to be an apologist for Obamakill.

Oh yeah, your argument that hospitals don't empty beds (with patients they won't make any money from) to make room for other ones (who will be more profitable) is wrong as well. Hospitals are businesses. Obamacare does not pay for patients with DNR's.

Not every patient who goes into a hospital signs a DNR! Where did you get that?

I've never signed one. My husband has never signed one, as well as many other people I know.

When a patient is pressured or forced to sign a DNR, it's usually so that death can be imposed or "allowed" by denying care.

A DNR is not mandatory in any medical setting. Although many patients are lead to believe they are today.

I will never sign a DNR.

I do agree with you that this has been going on long before Obamacare. I believe Obamacare has made it worse, but the problems started when secular bioethics were accepted, in exchange for moral based ethics. This happened in the 70's. 

Just about every patient who goes into the hospital signs a DNR. This was true for many years before Obamacare, even before Obama was elected. I believe they were common in the 1990s; it has nothing to do with Obamacare. My own father filled out a DNR 12 years ago. He also requested that the hospital not employ feeding tubes or machines to keep him going in the event of his decline and failure. He died a few months later. While I blame Bush for many things, even I can’t claim that he had anything to do with my father's decision, nor the facility’s legal, ethical, and moral obligation to honor it. I’m sincerely sorry for your father’s death, but no matter how much you hate Obama, he isn’t to blame any more than Bush was to blame for my father’s death. And that whole “hospitals need the beds” is faulty logic. It simply does not hold water as an argument. Killing off one patient in order to make room for another patient would be pretty pointless. But if you believe that’s what happened, then the blame lies with the hospital, not with politics.

Once again,  what DNR's are supposed to be.

McAlvie, many elderly patients with DNR orders are being killed with morphine, sedatives, and pulling sugar from their IV's, often if they have no terminal illness and resuscitation was not an issue. When my father was murdered that way, I started talking to people, and almost everybody I spoke with had a story to tell about an elder relative or friend with a DNR who died when he or she shouldn't have (only since Obamakill took effect). It's not just about resuscitation or not, it's about healthy people being actively killed simply because they are old and have DNRs. The hospital needed the bed. This never happened before Obamacare.

DNR means “do not resuscitate” ie employ CPR or other efforts to restore a heartbeat and breathing. Resuscitation would be an option only if someone is, by all logical definitions, dead. So a DNR does not kill anyone.

I say this not to provoke an argument, but because someone stumbling across this post might not know this and might go away misinformed.

Morgan, issue was taken with Damita not even about her view that people wrongly take grief to indicate mental illness, an opinion to which she is entitled, but about her personal and unwarranted attack on another poster.

Damita, in case you are still interested in Pamstegma I can answer part of your questions. Pam herself hasn't been on this forum for months. Yes, she has lost someone close to her ... she was caring for her dying daughter while she was very active here. She cared for several other family members as well.

She does take pills for her own anxieties (or did while she was posting here.)

While she was active, 17,800+ of her posts were given thumbs up. Apparently other members did not find her totally insensitive.

I don't mind when old posts are brought up again, for new discussion. But trying to argue with someone's opinion from 3 years ago, especially when that someone is no longer participating, seems to me pointless. I especially don't like it when someone assumes things about that poster that could easily be verified or refuted by simply reading the poster's profile.

You can certainly disagree with Pam's views, Damita. But assuming that she must never have lost a loved one is way out of line.

As I read it, MorganDWright, this post started off being about BANNING DNR's for everyone. Just not having them available, not for a 27 healthy 27 yo and not for an 85 yo dying of dementia.

Here we go again. Damita is talking about DNR's being used when there is a terminal illness, and how they are a good thing, and now McAlvie is doing the same thing. But this entire thread is about the abuse of DNR's, and using them to kill people who DON'T have terminal illness.

How many more times do I have to point this out?

It’s all about honoring the wishes of the patient. Families mean well most of the time, but it’s hard to let go and put the parent’s wishes above their own fear of letting go. It’s also hard, so very hard, to make that call. A DNR enforces the wishes of the patient. I know how hard it is, I watched my father deteriorate until it was inescapable that he was tired and ready to go, getting weaker every day and then hour by hour. He was a proud man and lost the ability to even get to the bathroom on his own. It would have been a devastatingly difficult call for us, but dad, even at the last, took care of his family by taking care of the hard choices - his choices, which is all that matters in the end.

Damita, I am afraid you are making rather a lot of assumptions of your own.

I agree with you that grief is THE natural response to loss. I'm sure Pam would, too. Heaven knows she has experienced enough of it.

What she is advocating is the use of medication for people who, even in the fullness of time, find themselves unable to adapt and are suffering disproportionately. Being grief-stricken, after all, does not make a person less vulnerable to mental illness.

Isthis - yes, absolutely, quite, me too, I agree - ! I read quickly through your post nodding at every sentence. In particular the reaction to being asked a question.

Pamstegma, you are advocating use of medication to deal with grief. Have you ever lost someone close? Here is a bit of information for you: one learns to live with the loss, but it does not make life easier and grief is not to be mistaken for depression. We adapt but still miss that important person. I lost a child when she was 17 on Valentine's Day and I miss her every day because she would have been the kid who would have loved me during my old age. I miss her all the time so do not assume, (emphasis on the first three letters for those who assume) that people have a mental illness relating to grief. You should take pills to cure your insensitive nature.

Captain, calling something relating to DNRs the dog pill is distasteful. Besides, thank goodness you are not in charge of evey person's decision choices.

Most people agree that a DNR is to stop resuscitation when it would be detrimental to quality of life, and frankly, I prefer a DNR to having my ribs broken at any age. But, please be respectful.

CM most medical personnel do things like you described above to make patients and family feel stupid or incompetent, nurse's like one above do this out of their own stupid incompetent ignorance, if we fully know our job we can explain in layman terms so others can understand, if we can't it is because we lack the full understanding ourselves, thereby making explanations impossible. When my dad had 2 heart attacks 6 years ago I could tell which medical professionals knew their jobs and which ones barely knew what they were doing, the ones that knew appreciated questions and explained without using idioms or abbreviated terms to bring us up to date. I even asked when abbreviated terms were used and one nurse couldn't tell me what it meant, how scary is that? So if orders are written in abbreviated terms could she really follow them? Not likely. We live in a buyer beware world and each need to use do diligence to protect ourselves and our loved ones, not just trust. Questions to these "professionals " will alert you to their personal ability, if they are trained in communication and didn't get that, what else could have been missed? I reiterate that there are good, caring Drs out there and one way for people to know if their Dr is one, is by asking questions and paying attention to the answers. Anyone that takes offense at being questioned falls in the bad apple basket in my mind. I don't mean to run on or cause offense but, we need education on how to weed out the bad apples or our story could be one of avoidable tragedy.

I disagree. I think one of the main problems is when people trust their doctors, because they are the medical professionals, who know what's best, instead of following their instincts.

Unfortunately, this is the mistake we made with my grandma, who was denied her fluid pill, sedated with morphine and let to suffocate to death by these "medical professionals".

Just my two cents based on my experiences.

Isthis - the point I meant to make is that, since we don't have five years' basic training + xxx specialist training, if we want medical input at all we have no option but to trust the people who do. SO that trust is precious; SO doctors need to take better care of it. Not guilty, by the way - I'm not a doctor, though I'm very close to several; and I've certainly had my fair share of run-ins with overbearing/over hasty/careless practitioners over the years. I completely agree about the need for advocacy, and I'd add that it's crucial that patients and families feel comfortable asking for explanations and speaking up if there's anything they don't understand; and I'm forever yakking on about wishing doctors' and nurses' communication skills were better. They are *all* trained in effective communication, but... ugh. Maybe it's the trainers who need taking out and spanking?

I remember overhearing a young paediatric nurse tell an anxious mother (and this was supposed to be good news) "he pee-ewed this morning!" Mother nonplussed, as well she might be - what fresh H*ll..? Nurse apologised (sort of. She giggled nervously. I was ready to pull back the bed curtain and slap her) and explained that p.u. stands for pass urine. The nurse saved one syllable and made herself completely incomprehensible in the process. And the *mother* ended up feeling thick because she didn't understand something so simple.

It's a bit of a bête-noire, communication. Drives me potty.

Mike, Flowgo's mother wrote her own directive, including a DNR, well before she voluntarily went into hospital for the minor elective procedure. I did begin to wonder if her mother had been entirely truthful with Flowgo about what exactly was going on from the outset. She never wanted to share what the procedure was, or what the (finally agreed on) certified cause of death was.

This is a really scary situation. I feel that my mother is very lucky. I believe she had some kind of a stroke or effects from medications at 1st rehab. Then I had her taken to hospital where I was told nothing wrong with her. Taken to 2nd rehab where was was over medicated. And suggested hospice was best for her at this point. She came home with hospice taken off most medications and is doing much better. Is still bedridden but is alert and not confused. If she was taken to hospice facility instead of home she would be dead. In the beginning hospice wanted me to have liquid morphine in house just in case I refused. I will think about it when she really is dying and in pain. She was sleeping constantly and out of it and not eating at rehab. Being told her body is shutting down. Please be careful in facilities. There is no need for morphine until the person is in pain. I think the problem is the elderly are not considered important any more in this society. My mother has a dnr but that has not been a problem. And hospice at home has been good. You just need to be aware of what can happen.