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Do Not Resuscitate: Forms and Information
End of Life care, and what to expect
Out of interest, how much does a doctor get paid for adding a DNR notice? And how much do they then get for signing the inevitable death certificate? When you say that this payment is not that high, it is surely a conflict of interest to pay the doctors per death. If, for example, the payment is £50, and there are currently 100,000 deaths, then the payment to doctors so far in this pandemic is 50x 100,000 = £5,000,000!
My aged mother had to go to hospital in December. The doctor said it would not be in her best interest to revive her if she had a heart attack because the revival procedure was violent and would probably result in broken ribs, and would not succeed in any event because her heart was inefficient and she had AF. We were persuaded that a DNR notice was required to prevent unnecessary intervention, and we agreed that she would not have wanted this. However, we agreed to this on the understanding that the doctors would do all that they could to give her a fighting chance. But once this notice is in place, no such chance is given and the “pathway” is not one of recovery. I think that for “Do not resuscitate” read “Do not recover”, and the patient’s fate is sealed. They are heavily sedated, starved of food and drink, and then their oxygen is gradually turned down, then off, resulting in death. Whilst it is true that thus may reduce suffering in those who are terminally ill, most people to not realise exactly what they are consenting to when they agree to DNR.
*My apologies for delay in adding this comment – inadvertently marked as ‘spam’
The NHS total disregard for your right to life is a disgrace. We all pay for the NHS and as a result we should all have equal access to it. In fact there is an argument that the elderly are more entitled to receive full NHS services than the young, as they have paid more into the system, they should get more out of it and therefore should be of the highest priority.
Yet the NHS continues to discriminate against anyone 65 years old and over. DNR orders were placed on all coved-19 patients medical records who were 65 and over. This is akin to genocide and the doctors and nurses of today who support and carry out these crimes against humanity are criminals.
To create equality all doctors and nurses working in the NHS should be required to sign their own DNR notices as a condition of employment. All clinical staff should be required as part of their employment contracts to have DNR notices put on their own medical records. This action would help doctors and nurses to understand how corrupt and dangerous this practise has become, and may help to reduce its use on the general public.
The abuse during the summer of 2020 was shocking. A 55 year old full time midwife was admitted to a North East hospital with covid-19. She was told that because she was 55 years old she was too old to be resuscitated and a DNR notices was placed on her medical records. This 55 year old full time nurse had no under lying health condition and worked full time for the NHS. She was told she was for palliative care only. This middle aged nurse was terrified being fully trained in palliative care and knew that if full implemented it would most certainly lead to her death. She was particularly concerned about the withdrawal of essential food and water, which is a core part of palliative and end of life care.
This terrified nurse begged to be allowed to go home. She was discharged from hospital and made a full recovery at home. Had she stayed in hospital she would have likely been percribed a cocktail of drugs including Morphine and Midazolam, which would have rendered her unconscious and suppressed her breathing, likely resulting in her death.
The continuing abuse of patients in this manner must stop. The level of discrimination against older people, the sick, disabled and those with both mental health and learning difficulties is a disgrace. The Equality Act and The NHS Constitution were created to protect patients from such abuse, yet the NHS is beyond its authority to order doctors and nurses to carry out actions that deny patients the right to life. Euthanasia is currently against the law in this country.
May I remind doctors and nurses that carry out at these crimes against the UK population, that they are setting the scene for their own demise. Doctors and nurses will do this to your own family and to yourselves should you get sick. Over 680 hospital staff have died this year of coved-19, the majority of which had DNR orders put on their medical records and were told they were for palliative care only. You are killing your own, and if you are unlucky enough to get the covid-19 infection, you are killing yourself.
I would like you to take a moment to consider how you would feel if your children with disabilities and older relatives were treated in this way. I am aware of reports where doctors have got into physical fights on NHS hospital wards, when one doctor put another doctors father on the ‘Liverpool Care Pathway’, now re-named ‘End Of Life Care’. If this is how hospital staff react when a DNR order is used on their own family, they should think twice about its use on others. Their support of these protocols will one day be carried out not just against their own children and loved ones, but against themselves.
The number of staff suffering a Moral Injury is huge, staff are unhappy, say there is a culture of mistrust among staff and are leaving the NHS in droves. So many staff find it almost impossible to justify the NHS support for these actions.
Paula Torrance November 27th 2020
Thanks for an interesting message. I’ve just read an article in the Daily Mail today about these notices being applied when not justified. Makes me a little concerned about any future hospital treatment as we are well over 65
I visited a family friend in hospital due to a heart attach – he,d been found unconscious and cpr had been used to revive him and his entire chest area was black and bruised. He never woke up and died a few days later
Likely the medication he was on morphine and midazolm were keeping your friend sedated. I worked as a NHS nurse for years and resucitated many patient in my time, none sufferred brusing to the chest and non were unconscious. The introduction of ‘End Of Life Care’ prevents patients from making a full recovery and it is likely your friend died due to the cocktail of drugs he was perscribed.
There are a number of outspoken health care practitioners and solicitors speaking out about this today, but many remain silent for fear of loosing their jobs. There is a culture of distrust and fear amoung staff in the NHS today.
Any patient admitted to hospital with underlying health conditions are likely to leave with DNR notices on their medical records. The doctors are paid a bonus for adding this to their patients medical records. It reminds me of the doctor in the US who diagnosed and treated hundreds of patients for cancer who didn’t have it. In the US cancer specialists get a 10,000 $ reward from the drug company every time they referr a patient for chemotherapy. Although the reward for putting DNR notices on patients medical records is not that high, if doctors do it to a number of patients these extra payments can lead to a substantial increase in a doctors overall salary.