The nurse would have been covered by Good Samaritan laws in regard to not being liable for damages of all sorts that arise from her intervention and had she been fired, she could have sued and likely won, but realistically, she would not have been fired at all in connection to the incident, but rather, she would have been let go with some pretext in a few weeks. Which would have been impossible to challenge and also one’s name becomes “known” and one is not offered work, and proving discrimination is next to impossible. Had she done CPR against the employer’s protocol, perhaps she was better off resigning and giving interviews to the media, which would have had good chances to land her a job at a facility with different policies – but likely, not close to home.
I am aware that we would not be required to jeopardize our job, but still it is despicable. A normal person would at the very least feel bad about it. Now let me ask you a question: suppose it hadn’t been a human, suppose it had been a dog. Suppose the dog had choked on something and a trained person can easily get the dog out of trouble; instead the trained person calls a veterinary hospital requesting they send someone, and refuses to help the dog in any way, refuses even to ask a passer-by to help. Can you imagine the outrage? The press? The TV? But let us put aside what people think, suppose it had happened to us – on shabbat and no non-jew in sight – it died right in front of us, of course we let the dog die, but would we not feel at least a tiny bit of sorrow at the dog’s fate which reminds us of (human) mortality?
A 24hr button (not sure how exactly is called) is a timer which beeps an alarm after 24hr it has been operating. Staff can push a button and reset the counter. Or, if nothing is done, the machine shuts itself off after, I think, 6 or 12 more hours. This allows doctors to set up life support measures and if the patient is stabilized but has otherwise bleak prospects, the family and their rabbi can decide not to continue with efforts; if the patient looks like is responding well, he/she can stay on the respirator (or other life-support) as long as necessary. Such a device is available in Jewish hospitals but I don’t think is very common elsewhere. If the problem is unavailability of the device, a normal timer plug can help. If the problem is that staff is not going to accommodate the patient’s and family’s wishes and beliefs, there is no easy solution.
And please give me a break about ethical committees. Even nazis had them (and to their credit, the “program” with regards to handicapped people was shut down pretty quickly when such ethical committees objected). I am not going to rely on ethical committees, what has some chance to work is talking to the staff and doing what is necessary. Sure some people would be all up in arms about violation of regulations and rules, but I am afraid they are the same people who say that the nurse was forced to act like she did, and we have to live with it, or at most, write a complaint letter to the president and to the local congressperson. I don’t accept this. The nurse was not forced! Not even SS were forced! Those who declined to do, were not courtmartialed, were not demoted, were simply transfered to normal army units (oh yes, riskier job than the other one).
Also, please reread, I never said “give a lethal dose of medication”. This may well happen occasionally, but (if discovered) it is sanctioned, and besides, not even Dr Kevorkian did that (he offered a device which allowed the patient to suicide: he did not activate it). In any case that one is a totally different discussion and has to do with murder. I was talking about medical personnel who are uncomfortable with some people’s suffering or supposed suffering – a sedated old person in an ICU does not feel pain, but is difficult to watch and is disturbing, especially for those who share a certain view of life and death – and I was talking about medical personnel who “avoid delaying” the unavoidable, in most cases feeling good about it. By the way, “the unavoidable” is unavoidable for everyone, and no one can say how long they will live nor if we will be healthy or disabled (we can have an accident this very day) but this sobering thought does not seem to cross everyone’s mind. It should.