Everyone, including lawyers, should be careful with Living Wills and the Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) clause. Our relative, who was an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) for 17 years, said that he would not sign a DNR because he thought that if he did, he would allow the doctors to cause his death. We respected his decision, but we couldn’t believe that doctors who primarily preserve life were so eager to end life. As it turns out, however, he was right, a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) document gives a nursing home or physician the green light to determine when or if a person can obtain life-preserving medical care.
When you’re signing the paperwork to place your loved one in a nursing home, you’ll be told how humane the Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) clause is, that it doesn’t require CPR and/or a defibrillator that can break a person’s ribs. your loved one. . However, you are not told how bad it is for your loved one if they lose mental or physical faculties, are unable to communicate their health care wishes, and indifferent people determine that the DNR means they do not want health care to extend their lives. Even though my wife had a power of attorney requesting medical care for her father, the nursing home staff simply ignored us and our attempt to preserve the life of our family member.
It turned out that they had our relative sign a DNR while in the brain fog of an infection. The doctor misdiagnosed this patient’s daughter (my wife) with mental illness for trying to honor her father’s last wishes. She was unable to adequately communicate with her father, so she had reservations about sanctioning an amputation of her leg without her consent, which I thought was prudent. This doctor had never met or spoken to my wife and he had no psychiatric credentials that we are aware of. But when a doctor makes a notation in a medical record, he has a lot of weight in court, even if the information is false. So the nursing home staff took the doctors point of view and stated that my wife was insane for trying to preserve her father’s life, therefore over governing her rights as a power of attorney and they were going to legally remove the his father’s life he wanted to live.
Therefore, a DNR in some circumstances can be more powerful than a power of attorney. I don’t think we are the only victims of this abuse of a DNR clause that some misguided people use to prematurely extinguish the value of human life. The common practice with the fervent sales pitch to have family members sign a DNR outside of humanity can be valid to a degree, but it can also be abused by people who believe they have the right to determine when a person dies.
It is recommended that you include a clause or add a handwritten note stating that the DNR does not give either party the right to deny your loved one medical care. A DNR has the ability to turn a doctor or nursing home staff into a psychopath and you should have reservations about signing such a document.