week 5 DQ 1
DQ 1 Response 1
As health care is advancing, there have been many essential right concerning patients. The process of dying is very complex and it consequences are complicated. If one dies, the individual will not come back again. Therefore, individual with living will may promote care providers’ guideline to their destiny. It will prevent any litigation that may affect the care provider and the organization. Healthcare industry has now got involved or it is now involving spiritual treatment. Spiritual health care may have close relationship with end of life. The essential aspect to spiritual health care may include emotions, feelings, and assumptions of an individual. Therefore, it is very important to guide such essential concerning patient desire to have evidence. Sometimes patient do not want their family members to witness such desire because of the emotional consequences. Every patient knows the kind of pain their feeling and if this individual desire to end this suffering, others may not understand. Hence parent and family of a patient should not interfere in such situation. I can imagine a patient with a serious accident and is subjected to life support machine based on the patient’s unresponsive reaction. This patient has gone through treatment day and night for more than years. Such situation worsens the patient pain and suffering but who else can feel what the patient is feeling? Parent should decide on what they would do to their child regardless. In my opinion, the child will depend on the parent to survive living healthy. It would be very painful if the parent income -wise is poor. Which will lead the child to go through painful life. Therefore, parent knows their situation at hand and they need to make their own decision regardless.
Reference
Balk, E. D: Closing the gaps on efforts to improve healthcare quality at the end-of-life.
Russell, D: Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life by the Committee on Approaching Death: Addressing Key End of Life Issues. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2014. 638 pages.
Response 2
Assess the ethical issues surrounding end-of-life decisions. How has the living will affected medical response and why is this important for guiding end-of-life decisions? Should families be able to impact how and if a person's living will is carried out? Should parents have the right to choose to end the life of their child if the child has Down Syndrome?
Living wills are very important. They are legal documents that lay out decisions that the patient has made for their health care in the event that they are unable to make decisions anymore. Decisions that are made could include if the patient wants to be resuscitated or kept on life support. Furthermore, a living will can have the patients in regards to pain management or organ donation. (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2017) This is way if the patient’s family or friends do not agree it goes back to the patient’s wishes in their living will. I do not believe the family should have say so if the living will is upheld. The patient was competent and cognitive at the time the living will was created. I believe a parent of a child down syndrome should have the right to make an end-of-life decision. This decision needs to be made in the best interest of the child. If health care staff believed the decision made might be unethical then an ethics committee needs to get involved to make a final decision.
Ryan
Reference:
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2017). Living wills and advance directives for medical decisions. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/living-wills/art-20046303
Response 3
It almost always seems that ethical issues are present when it comes to end of life decisions. This is primarily due the fact that death of a loved one and even just death in general is a very touchy subject. To make this process of end of life easier among individual’s dealing with the death living wills have been made to positively affect these decisions by making things much easier. A living will and advance directives are described by the Mayo Clinic (2017) as one’s preferences for end of life care when one is not able to speak for themselves. These are extremely important when guiding end of life decisions due to the fact that it allows the dying to have their wished followed through with, without fail. In my personal opinion I do not think family’s should be able to change how a persons living will should be carried out. Living wills are done when one is in the correct state of mind, making them completely viable. As for parents having the right to choose the end of life care for their child whom has down syndrome I believe that the parent should be allowed to make decisions and maybe if the decision is being questioned then the ethics committee should come in and be a fresh set of eyes.
Lauren
References
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2017). Living wills and advance directives for medical decisions. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/living-wills/art-20046303
Response 4
There are so many ethical issues that involve those who are nearing death. I have seen first hand where children of the patient are fighting over, who gets what! It is very disturbing to me. I do not know how some people could be so cruel. There have been incidents were the family is asked to leave because of the bickering that goes on in the patients room.
Another ethical dellima is that we, as nurses, must respect the families wishes even when we do not agree. I had a patient just a few weeks ago, who would cry out in pain and the family asked me to stop giving pain medications. As a nurse, I feel obligated to atleaset follow comfort measure and if he is dying and in pain, can I at least manage his pain, please? this was something that I looked at as wrong but because they are family, we have to respect their wishes. My patient died a few days later. The sad thing is..It was me, my charge nurse, and an NAC by his side, not his family.
In my opinion, I think the closest family member to the patient should be able to manage the living will. This ones a little hard though. I am not really sure, because what if one is leading on about being closer to the patient than they really were?
This question is really hard. I will right of hand say, "no" the parent should not end the life of their baby with down syndrome. The child should be treated with dignity and respect and we should fight to save their life like we would for any other one of our patients. Ultimately, the decision would be up to the parents. Would everyone agree?
-angelica-
Response 5
3 posts
Re:Topic 5 DQ 1
The ethical issues surrounding end-of-life decisions are very controversial if there is not an advanced directive in place or living will. The way living wills have affected medical response for guiding end-of-life is by following the end-of-life wishes. Because a living will address the patient’s wishes, I believe families should be able to impact how the person’s living will should be carried out because they know the patient better. “However, advance directives or living wills can alleviate this dilemma if individuals make their wishes known in advance” (“Lecture 5”, 2008).
In addition, the family knows the patient’s culture, beliefs, and values; therefore, they should be able to impact how the person’s living will is being conducted.
As for the parents having the right to choose to end the life of their child if the child has Down Syndrome I think they should not if that is the reason they are choosing to end their life. If the child with Down syndrome has cancer and the prognosis is poor, then I think it is more acceptable under those circumstances.
References
Lecture 5. (2008). HTL 312V: Ethics for Health Care Professionals. Phoenix, AZ: Grand Canyon University.