Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
Unwanted medical treatment - a painful nightmare we cannot afford
By Sean Crowley and Mickey MacIntyre |
July 16, 2013, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
IMAGINE your 90-year-old mother has Alzheimer's disease and is near death. But before she became mentally incompetent, she gave you power of attorney to sign a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order so medical personnel would honor her wishes to die peacefully, without aggressive medical interventions in her final days.
Then your worst nightmare unfolds: your mother goes into cardiac arrest, and is subjected to the very treatment she had been determined to avoid - aggressive, traumatic Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation, and other extreme measures, including having a hole cut in her throat, being injected with paralyzing drugs, having tubes forced down her throat and into her stomach, and having air forced into her lungs.
Two days after this aggressive, traumatic resuscitation, you are in the indescribably horrifying situation of having to direct that your mother's ventilator be removed so she can finally die and her suffering end. But she lingers on in a slow decline for another five days while you maintain a heartbreaking, bedside vigil each day and night until she finally passes away. Then to add insult to injury, the hospital hands you a bill for this unwanted medical treatment totaling thousands of dollars.
Sound preposterous? Unfortunately, it's not. It is Sharon Hallada's real life, front page news nightmare. It prompted America's leading national organization dedicated to ensuring that medical professionals honor patients' end-of-life choices, Compassion & Choices, to help Sharon file a lawsuit against a hospital and a nursing home in Lakeland, Florida, for failing to honor her mother's wishes. Sharon sued on behalf of her deceased mother, Marjorie Mangiaruca, to ensure no else's parent has to endure this kind of traumatic experience.
Carrot and stick
In fact, medical professionals override or ignore many patients' decisions in the weeks and months before their deaths.
To stop this disturbing trend, policy makers can and should provide both the carrot and the stick to ensure that patients' wishes are honored: financial incentives for honoring advance directives and financial disincentives for disregarding patients expressed wishes.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should deny payment to providers when there is clear evidence that patients were subjected to treatments they didn't want - just as current policies deny payment when patients receive unnecessary treatment.
Compassion & Choices recently recommended CMS initiate several steps to improve the quality of conversations among health care professionals, patients and families about end-of-life decisions, including reimbursing medical providers for participation in advanced care planning with patients and their families well in advance of illness or before facing end of life.
MacIntyre is the Chief Program Officer for America's leading end-of-life choice advocacy group, Compassion & Choices. Crowley is Media Relations Manager for Compassion & Choices. Copyright: American Forum. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
Then your worst nightmare unfolds: your mother goes into cardiac arrest, and is subjected to the very treatment she had been determined to avoid - aggressive, traumatic Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation, and other extreme measures, including having a hole cut in her throat, being injected with paralyzing drugs, having tubes forced down her throat and into her stomach, and having air forced into her lungs.
Two days after this aggressive, traumatic resuscitation, you are in the indescribably horrifying situation of having to direct that your mother's ventilator be removed so she can finally die and her suffering end. But she lingers on in a slow decline for another five days while you maintain a heartbreaking, bedside vigil each day and night until she finally passes away. Then to add insult to injury, the hospital hands you a bill for this unwanted medical treatment totaling thousands of dollars.
Sound preposterous? Unfortunately, it's not. It is Sharon Hallada's real life, front page news nightmare. It prompted America's leading national organization dedicated to ensuring that medical professionals honor patients' end-of-life choices, Compassion & Choices, to help Sharon file a lawsuit against a hospital and a nursing home in Lakeland, Florida, for failing to honor her mother's wishes. Sharon sued on behalf of her deceased mother, Marjorie Mangiaruca, to ensure no else's parent has to endure this kind of traumatic experience.
Carrot and stick
In fact, medical professionals override or ignore many patients' decisions in the weeks and months before their deaths.
To stop this disturbing trend, policy makers can and should provide both the carrot and the stick to ensure that patients' wishes are honored: financial incentives for honoring advance directives and financial disincentives for disregarding patients expressed wishes.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should deny payment to providers when there is clear evidence that patients were subjected to treatments they didn't want - just as current policies deny payment when patients receive unnecessary treatment.
Compassion & Choices recently recommended CMS initiate several steps to improve the quality of conversations among health care professionals, patients and families about end-of-life decisions, including reimbursing medical providers for participation in advanced care planning with patients and their families well in advance of illness or before facing end of life.
MacIntyre is the Chief Program Officer for America's leading end-of-life choice advocacy group, Compassion & Choices. Crowley is Media Relations Manager for Compassion & Choices. Copyright: American Forum. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
