Unilateral Non-Resuscitation at Massachusetts General by Wesley J. Smith, National Review Online / 05/12/2014

Below is an article published in life and hope, a publication of the Terri Sciavo Life and Hope Network volume 6 / 1st Edition / www.lifeandhope.com.  This is posted for no monetary gain, or any other kind of gain, and for no promise of any kind of gain.

Unilateral Non-Resuscitation at Massachusetts General
By Wesley J. Smith
National Review Online / 05/12/14

Can this have something to do with Romney/Obamacare?

According to a medical study, since 2006, Massachusetts General Hospital's Bioethics Committee has forced people to not receive wanted resuscitation by imposing unilateral DNRs.  And apparently, it's all done in Star Chamber secrecy.  From Thaddeus Pope's blog (quoting from a medical symposium presentation).

     "Unilateral Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) orders are a specific type of medical futility decision in which clinicians withhold advanced cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the event of cardiopulmonary arrest despite objections of patients or their surrogates.  There is little information on how often and to whom unilateral DNR orders are applied.  The ethics committee at Massachusetts General Hospital has had a unilateral DNR policy since 2006.

We investigated the incidence, sociodemographic and clinical predictors, and outcomes of patients with unilateral DNR orders.

     If I read this correctly, thirty-eight percent of those upon whom the unilateral DNRs appear not to have been at the end stage of a terminal disease:

     Patients for whom unilateral DNR was recommended were more likely to have conditions judged to be endstage rather than potentially reversible (62% versus 41 %, p=0.05)"

     And who can be surprised that non-whites were more likely to have an involuntary DNR imposed?

   This is medical tyranny.  People are refused potentially life-saving treatment based on the secret views of strangers in committee who have given themselves the power to so dictate.  Litigate!


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