Letting A Terminally Ill Person Refuse Medical Care

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#1 :: May 6th, 2012 @ 7:49 PM

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I think allowing an adult to refuse medical care (FOR THEMSELVES, ONLY!) should be legal, but I also believe that each person needs to be evaluated carefully. When a person suffers from a disease, infection, cancer, and so on, and there's nothing more that can medically be done to significantly reduce their suffering and/or better their quality of life, they should be permitted to relieve their suffering. Of course, I also feel that each person must be seen by a doctor and psychiatrist to determine their mental state; many people have conditions in which their body may fail or shut down, but their mind remains as sharp as ever. For example, someone with ALS. Imagine being trapped in a prison, unable to communicate, but you are aware of everything going on around you. This is what someone with ALS goes through until they eventually pass away.

Now, I'll admit, I am biased; my father was terminally ill for my whole life. The doctors knew the damage done to his body and mind could never be reversed. He went from (before I was born) being the owner of his own business with my mom, to the mayor of our town, to someone in constant pain. But that wasn't the end of it, by far. After some time, he had horrible headaches. The opthamologist told him that he was going blind. After only six months or so, he was declared legally blind. Then, he lost the ability to walk, so he was constantly in a wheelchair. After that, dialysis, because his kidneys had failed. From there, his condition spiralled to the point where he would beg us to let him die. And yet, because of the law, we could not; we would all have been charged for denying him medical attention and such.

One day he fell out of bed. We called the ambulance, and they brought him to the hospital. He was in the ICU for two weeks. He could not move in bed, he could not eat, he was in diapers, and horrible pain. I saw him like that every single day, and the doctors could do nothing. He had several strokes. The day before he died, he did not know who I was. He kept asking for me and my brothers (who were on the other side of the country; their flights were delayed). Through tears, I told him we were all there with him. We went home that night and told him we would see him tomorrow. The next day. we got a phone call. With his last ounce of strength, he took off his oxygen mask. His O2 levels dropped almost immediately, and he died. He died alone and an an unfamiliar place. We never got a chance to say our final goodbyes.

Now, I challenge anyone reading this: try to debate with me that it wouldn't have been more merciful for him to pass away surrounded by his loved ones, while he still had some of his dignity. In the comfort of his own home, with the people who cared about him the most. When he could close his eyes for the last time seeing our faces.

#2 :: May 7th, 2012 @ 1:34 PM

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@bdsm You can already refuse medical treatment unless you're a danger to other people, you're not mentally sound, or you're a minor in the United States. An older person needs to write out legal documents about whether or not they want to be resuscitated in an emergency, otherwise a doctor will have to treat them if their wishes are unknown.

#3 :: May 7th, 2012 @ 1:58 PM

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reading stories like your enrage me, and im sorry for your loss.
i think people should be allowed to refuse the medical help if they are terminally ill, like your dad was (RIP). BUT they should be consulted by doctors to try and make sure they are mentally healthy - though this is a subject for a whole different debate.
it would have been much more dignifying for him to die at home, i suppose, surrounded by the loved ones, at least for the peace of mind of the family. usually the family wants to say goodbye.
i, for one, i wish i died alone, and i wish i didnt see anyone dieing around me - it would give me a too strong of a mental shock to witness it

i have a feeling that your father did what he did because he might wanted to die alone as well, especially if he felt like a burden for h rest of you. i know i'd feel that way in his shoes, and so would anyone, no matter how selfish they acted in life.
if i were that ill, id refuse the treatment, because i know it would be useless and a waste of energy, time and money.

im really sorry people have to pass through this, because of the laws, because true mercy comes when you actually stop the suffering not when you prolong it.
you guys should be happy he's in a better place with no worries and no pain.
so, in the end, i agree with you

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#4 :: May 7th, 2012 @ 5:34 PM

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@ I'm not in the United States, so it's a bit different. Because he was not capable of walking and everything, it was on my mom and I to bring him to his dialysis and all his many other appointments. Because of the strokes, as well, it was implied by his doctor that he would not be able to sign a waiver of not seeking medical care against medical advice (AMA). Although he had expressed his wish to us many times verbally, we never got him to sign any official paperwork when he was still deemed mentally sound. I mean, he was mentally sound to US (as we knew him the best) until the very last week of his life, at which point he was unable to understand who we were.

@Lord_Krystalle Thank you very much for your kind words - I think you understood perfectly what I was trying to get across. Meaning, I wanted him to have the OPTION to be able to just stay at home with us where we could make him comfortable - if he didn't want to do that, of coure we would have respected it 100%, but, as I posted above, he often expressed his wish to pass while at home - and, we didn't think there would be a legal issue with it, so we didn't fill out any paperwork

. Oh and of course, I mean, we didn't want him to leave us, but we knew how much pain he was in, and all the suffering he had endured, so we were incredibly sad when he left us, but in a way, also relieved that his agony had ended.

---------

In general, I just want to add for clarification purposes in regards to my first post, I think this should be permitted ONLY when there is no chance of recovery. People with terminal cancer, ALS, and so on. Not as a means of convenience for someone who is depressed or anything like that.

#5 :: May 7th, 2012 @ 6:25 PM

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@bdsm At this point, it sounds more like a euthanasia debate than the right to say no to treatment. Normally that kind of thing is about one particular medical procedure that is not life threatening, but rather aimed at improving quality of life.

#6 :: May 7th, 2012 @ 6:28 PM

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@ No. In this case specifially, it was about his right to reefuse dialysis.

#7 :: May 7th, 2012 @ 6:32 PM

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@bdsm K. In what country did this take place?

#8 :: May 7th, 2012 @ 7:41 PM

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@ I am rather paranoid about my privacy, so I do not wish to publicly state it online. However, we are a democracy and so on and so forth

#9 :: May 7th, 2012 @ 10:05 PM

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Quote:

they should be permitted to relieve their suffering

Quote:

that it wouldn't have been more merciful for him to pass away surrounded by his loved ones, while he still had some of his dignity. In the comfort of his own home, with the people who cared about him the most. When he could close his eyes for the last time seeing our faces.

I think you're confusing refusing medical treatment for euthanasia. Medical treatment can be a good thing if you're terminally ill, just because it will make you more comfortable during your last point in life. However, if you are of sound mind and don't want to suffer any more then that sound be your choice. You seem to be trying to persuade us that your father should have been able to choose his time and place to die with his loved ones, which would be euthanasia.

#10 :: May 8th, 2012 @ 5:22 AM

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i dont think her father wanted to choose when and where to die. he woulld have preferred to die at home, yea, but he didnt say i want to die on this day and at this hour.
he simply didnt want to get treatment, because of reasons. he would have died sooner, yes, but not at a certain moment, which defines euthanasia.

for the record, im quite against euthanasia on humans, even in the case of a terminally ill person. ♥ ♥ ♥

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#11 :: May 8th, 2012 @ 6:58 AM

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@ Agreed, pretty much same thing I said but the OP denied it..not much of a debate going on here!

#12 :: May 8th, 2012 @ 9:06 AM

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@BDSM

So, are you trying to debate someone refusing treatment (which people can as long as they are not declared legally incompetent) or assisted suicide? And if so, are you talking physician assisted suicide, or family/self?

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#13 :: May 8th, 2012 @ 10:00 AM

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@BDSM I whole-heartedly agree with you, people should be able to refuse medical service that is not helping them in any way. Being in that condition is terrible enough that we don't need to add onto it by refusing to abide by their wishes and keeping them in pain.

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#14 :: May 8th, 2012 @ 5:53 PM

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@ Sorry for the confusion! My intent was to offer a debate of letting a person stay with their family vs. dying in a hospital in terms of their last few weeks or days of their lives. I didn't want to open this is to a euthanasia debate, only because there is an active topic on it

, so I wanted to see what people thought about allowing their loved ones to refuse such treatment as opposed to insisting they should be hospitalized, which is often done out of a fear of legal remmifications.

#15 :: May 8th, 2012 @ 7:46 PM

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@BDSM

Okay then.

Well, speaking from experience, in the U.S, you can choose so. My grandmother had lung cancer due to working at a church that had asbestos. She wanted to die at home, and that's what she did. She wanted to die in her bed, in her house, surrounded by loved ones. It was very hard to watch her die, but I know that she wanted to go that way. And I'm glad she's not suffering anymore.

I was only about 11 at the time, so I'm not sure about what happened before that. I remember when I was really little, maybe around 5 or 6, and she was first diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctors gave her three months to live, but she booted that right out the field. I remember going with my dad to visit her in the hospital. I don't think that she ever got chemo, but I remember she had a portable oxygen respirator thingy, a tube that went into her nose so she could breathe.

Anyway, she probably did have to go through some legal steps to make sure that she would die in her home and that she would not go get treatment. I don't know what country you live in, so I can't look up laws regarding these things, but I suggest you do it yourself. Make sure that you are informed and that, when a family member is diagnosed with a terminal illness or is going into surgery, they have their living will written out and signed. In your family's case, your father was unable to do it, so that is why the hospitals had to take care of him. However, if your mother would then be his caretaker...

Essentially, there are a lot of factors that you aren't telling us. I'm not accusing you, but I am only stating that you have many blank holes in your first post. We don't know the laws of your country, the legal proceedings, healthcare ethical codes, etc.

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#16 :: May 9th, 2012 @ 6:49 PM

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@ I know that there are a great deal of facts that are not included - I posted my story just as an EXAMPLE, but my question was about it in theory.

#17 :: May 9th, 2012 @ 9:32 PM

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@BDSM Well, again, I'm speaking as a US citizen here, so you can refuse medical treatment and you can die at home. But you need to be deemed competent.

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#18 :: June 6th, 2012 @ 2:56 PM

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You have my agreement and utmost sympathy.

Since I was four years old my sister (then 7) suffered from kidney failure. She got a transplant from my father that lasted two weeks, and then just remained on dialysis until she passed away at age 29, in 2011. Her whole life, all she knew was suffering, and all her organs just shut down slowly and painfully. In the end she lost brain function because her oxygen was cut off for over ten minutes, yet she had to continue living because her "husband" had them bring her back. She would look around her hospital room with a smile on her face, totally insensible, while he ordered more and more surgeries. I hate that man with a vengeance. It was awful. She should NEVER have signed over her Power of Attorney to him in the first place. But afterwards there was nothing we could do.

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