Bristol Hospital (Connecticut) Punished for Apparent Futile Care Imposition
I think the punishment is woefully weak, but it is a rare case of a health facility (Bristol Hospital, Bristol, CT) being publicly sanctioned for withdrawing or refusing wanted life sustaining treatment. From the story:In one case, a woman who suffered a heart attack and congestive heart failure completed an advance directive when she entered the intensive care unit, indicating that she wanted CPR and ventilation, but no tracheotomy.
This raises another issue, too: Advance directives' naming of surrogate decision makers should only apply if the patient is unable to personally make such decisions. Weakness, illness, and disability are no excuses for taking the patient out of the loop.
When the woman's condition deteriorated, a doctor and the woman's health care agent changed her status to "comfort measures only." Bristol Hospital's policy required informed consent from the patient in such a situation, but regulators found that medical records did not indicate that the woman was consulted, even though she was still alert. The doctor told regulators that she spoke with the patient's health care agent, but could not recall whether she consulted the patient. The woman was taken off the ventilator, and she died that night.
The punishment was only $4000 for this and other types of violations! But at least it was a public punishment, and SHS feels duty bound to help in that process in the belief that open chastisement has greater power to deter than puny money fines.
Labels: Futile Care Theory. Bristol Hospital. Public Sanction.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:35 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Can you imagine the horror of watching someone unhook your ventilator, sentencing you to death and being unable to do anything to stop them? I know it is already happening in other parts of the world, but if people here only knew or could empathize with the plight of that poor patient, I think futile care would be stopped in its tracks.
Jessie: Yes if people only knew or could empathize. It doesn't happen only in other parts of the world. Would that it can be stopped in its tracks; it will not happen easily.
Wesley: Puny, and not nearly enough appropriate sanction, is right. But at least this is a bit of good news for today.
That poor woman. May she rest in peace and may those who knew and loved her find the strength to heal and to recover. She, and they, are not alone.
And look at the "health care facility's" self-advertising. How about, "It's MY life"? It isn't a hospital, it's part of a "health care" enterprise. This is what happens along with that.
Be careful whom you pick as your surrogate. Why didn't the surrogate for health care know her wishes and object? It made them think they had "checked with somebody."
The punishment certainly was woefully weak given the life and death stakes here.
Unfortunately, survey data from many states suggests that withdrawal of life-sustaining medical treatment contrary to written advance care planning documents occurs many times every single day across the United States.
Thaddeus Pope
www.thaddeuspope.com
Lydia: Even when the person has carefully chosen their surrogate, and the surrogate knows what the person really wants and fights for the person's life, as the person wanted them to do, the hospital can try to find a way around that, and can succeed in its fatal attempt and agenda.
Lydia: It made them be able to SAY they had "checked with somebody." What they thought, and/or said about what they thought, may or may not have been honest. If the hospital has an agenda that that somebody doesn't go along with, it can pull stunts and get away with it. People trust the "rules" re the "documents" and "protocols" involved with this stuff (re proxies, advanced directives, ethics, etc.) and the players in the "system" which devised them use that trust to their own advantage; once the situation occurs, what can actually happen is beyond belief and all too real.
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