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in the news recently, a nurse that was working at Glenwood Gardens, which has an assistance living complex refused to do CPR on elderly woman that went into cardiac arrest.
I know that it is the company policy for most of these facilities not to let employees administer any medical services to the residents.
However, in this case the PT was dying, can a company prohibit a staff member of doing CPR on someone?
She is still a murderer in my opinion, and ought to be treated appropriately.
It is so sad how little people value human life.
Talking strictly from a business point of view NOT from an ethical or moral one. Policies and procedures clearly stating what is expected from employees, as stupid as they may be are expected to be followed.
Chicago’s Ravenswood Hospital had a policy prohibiting employees from leaving the hospital to assist potential patients. A teen died 300 feet away from the building with nurses standing outside smoking unable to assist due to policy. Politicians demanded changes. As long as the policy is on the books, employees must follow the rules.
Therefore, YES any company can make any policy that is legal and employees must follow or face the consequences. At the same time, the customer has the right to know what that policy is and decide whether to continue doing business with them or not.
She is still a murderer in my opinion
Why?
Failing to rescue someone in danger may very well be contemptible, but it’s not murder. Bais Din would not execute someone for this.
The Wolf
She allowed someone to die. Lo Ta’amod al dam reacha means nothing?
Rebdoniel,
It means she violated L’ Ta’amod, but it is not murder.
Furthermore, if the patient did not want to revived due to old age/illness, then it would be mutar to let the woman die.
I thought the Good Samaritans go both ways- if you are licensed you must help, and if you’re trying to help and are licensed you can’t be sued… I guess I was wrong.
Did the staff know how to do CPR? especially for an older person?
I have heard of a case where CPR was done on an elderly person by a young paramedic and broke the ribs. Needless to say, it was not effective.
I don’t blame her. She was put into a tough situation by the home. Their rule is not to do CPR. She likely would have been fired had she done it. I can’t expect her to give up her job for this.
I think the home needs to change its policy.
artchill: Are you serious? You think you can just excuse any behavior with “I am an employee and these are the rules”?
It was bad enough when the forced conscripts of the Nazi’s said that. You would extend it to any employee?
Any employee would break the rules if it was something they cared about. If it was their nephew being assaulted 300 feet away, you better believe they would go save him. If it was this nurse’s mother, you better believe she’d have done CPR or at least tried to find someone to do it.
the news reported she was breathing weakly. You don’t do CPR on someone who is alive/breathing. (I was taught that by my CPR teacher every year) so I find the whole thing confusing.
Unfortunately, employees must follow regulations. Very sad indeed. No employee should ever be in that position.
Again, from a business point of view, an employee has the right to do anything they please and can face the consequences. Corporate policy, as stupid as it may be, is meant to protect the interest of the company and is meant to be followed.
The nurse followed protocol of calling 911. She did what she had to do.
And yes, I think that employees that have some integrity would find a way around it…
popa, the lady’s daughter is a nurse and she said she was happy with the care received. Outside of the frum world there aren’t as many people as you think who want their elderly parents resuscitated. Any nurse in any hospital would do the SAME exact thing for all the elderly DNR patients in their care, which, by the way, is many of them. People feel it is selfish and cruel to prolong the life of a frail nursing home patient. This is not my opinion but this is what I have experienced in todays health care world.
“the news reported she was breathing weakly. You don’t do CPR on someone who is alive/breathing. (I was taught that by my CPR teacher every year) so I find the whole thing confusing.”
According to my first aid and cpr book you do do rescue breathing for someone who’s breathing isn’t proper. No compressions, but breathing yes. If she had a mask she should have helped…
What many of you fail to understand is this was the nursing homes policy, if you like it or not. No one is forced to attend this Home, but if you do, the rules apply.
You may believe the State of Israel is apikorsis, but if you attend an MO yeshiva you will be expected to march in the Israli Day Parade.
What you fail to understand is the business aspect of saving a life. If a person signs a DNR and one performs CPR, the nursing home or hospital can be sued for millions! If one performs CPR outside the hospital and fails or messes up, that person or hospital is liable for damages since the insurance coverage of the hospital does not extend outside the hospital. There are a lot of financial and legal considerations that Nursing Homes and Hospitals need to consider in a country where everyone loves to sue!
gamanit – you’re right, I guess I wasn’t thinking of that as CPR but you are probably right.
I agree that it is a reflection of the lack of respect for life that is increasing in the medical profession (and in the rest of the world.)
WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A HUMAN LIFE HERE.
The facts as given in the news were:
-The patient could have been saved.
-There was not a DNR in effect.
-The operator desperately tried to get the nurse to do anything to save the patient, even finding a bystander willing to perform CPR. The nurse flat out refused.
One thing to remember Is that she wouldn’t be covered by California’s good Samaritan law. While she Is a nurse she was not employed as a nurse. She would then be liable.
ICOT – I think WE would all have done differently, but I know that many (most?) of the secular world does not agree with us. I have listened to nurses complain at the torture that selfish children put their elderly parents through by not ‘letting them die peacefully’. Many individuals will tell you that they themselves would rather be DNR at that age, and that they would never make their parent “go through that” (meaning CPR). It is a moral judgement we are making as Torah Jews that is not a world view AT ALL in the medical community. I also don’t know that living in a home that does not resuscitate wouldn’t be like signing a DNR.
As an aside, I have heard doctors ask families why they insist on CPR when it will “probably leave them with broken ribs and a punctured lung”.
syag- it’s not supposed to be called CPR, but people call it CPR anyhow.
DNR has nothing to do with this, and DNR is not always assur.
And it is called CPR. The first step is to verify breathing/pulse.
Syag Lchochma-
truthsharer- it’s called rescue breathing. At least according to my teacher. There’s nothing cardiac about it.
What I am saying is that in the outside world (per my personal experiences as a health care person) it is NOT a given that rsuscitation is humanitarian. That is what I am saying. I agree with you 100%! But the view of hospitals etc does NOT agree. When my dad needed o- blood in his last days, the team asked us if we wouldn’t consider saving it for a young person who might need it more. Secular people all over are adamant about not wanting to be resuscitated late in their lives. They honestly believe that our push to revive people is selfish and torturous. And that comment about the ribs was from the ethics committee trying to push my dad to sign a DNR for my dying mother. It’s so prevalent I am surprised you are surprised (may you never bump into it out there!!!)
Here is the article YWN posted 4 days ago http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=159414
It should be pointed out this this “nurse” was not a nurse.
This facility is what is called an Independent Living Facility, not an Assisted Living Facility. One difference between the 2 is what the facility personnel are trained to deal with and do.
Anywhere in this story, has it been reported how long it actually took for EMTs to arrive once call was placed?
CPR is no guarantee. Most people are not revived by CPR and it is painful.
A few posters seem to have missed this point. Statistics especially in the elderly are not good.
I have no idea whether CPR would have been appropriate in this case. But to think that CPR is just flicking a switch that automatically brings back a dead/dying person is wrong.
Syag Lchochma-
There was no DNR, the nurse called 911, and medics tried to save the patient.
The debate over DNRs, euthanasia, quality of life, value of life etc is a separate one.
CPR is effective about 30% of the time. Rescue breathing is more effective, but I don’t know by how much. ubiquitin- even if it would be a 5% chance you wouldn’t want it for your relative?
“even if it would be a 5% chance you wouldn’t want it for your relative?”
whoever put the woman in this particular facility signed a form that stated very clearly the personnel at the facility would NOT do anything more than call 911. perhaps you and I and all those who are reading this would want more for their relative. it is obvious that this family did not.
Based on the facts given in the story, I believe she would have (not) acted similarly if the patient was a young child with a full life ahead of him/her.
I agree 100%. And I bet that child wouldn’t have been placed in a home where the policy was not to resuscitate.
I know it’s a separate subject, I was just under the impression that you thought it was a given that resuscitating an elderly patient is universally accepted as expected so I was just answering to that. Sorry if I had misread.
apashutayid – exactly
apushatayid–
Syag Lchochma–
You may not have understood what I was trying to say, but the odds are pretty good that it’s because I’m not always as clear as I’d like to be.
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Gamnanit, depends on the state of health in my relative, and the cause of cardiac arrest. In most scenarios in 80 year olds no I absolutely would not want CPR done.
I believe the hospital believed she was in a hospice situation in which death was imminent regardless of what was done, and that she was there to die. Based on the British press, it appears to be part of a larger controversy in which the health care providers (who are working for the government in most cases, rather than for the patients or the independent insurance companies that are responsible to the patients) are very willing to decide the a patient is moribund without consulting, or in disregard of the opinions of, the patient and the patient’s family.
A person can always make a choice.
artchill: I don’t exactly know what issue you are addressing. The question I am addressing is whether the nurse is a callous and despicable person, for not caring that her following company policy was allowing a person to die in front of her.
My answer is “yes”, and I don’t think that the corporate policy is at all relevant to this question. I don’t know why you think corporate policy is relevant to that question, or if you are perhaps answering a different question, hence my explanation.
syag: I concur that many Americans including the daughter do not value human life. That is precisely what I am reacting to.
It didn’t sound that way. It sounded like you and some others were saying that she knew it was wrong but wasn’t invested/connected enough to rise above her job duties. I am saying that I disagree that people think there is something wrong with letting an older person die. She didn’t call 911 to save the life and then refuse to join in. She called 911 for the same reason that she didn’t join in. She followed protocol. And for all we know she was like millions of others out there who did what they hope to have done to them. Thinking she went against what is right and chose her job over a life is projecting your values on her. Many in her situation may have happily done the same thing. Of course it would NOT be the choice of a Yid, but why assume she wasn’t perfectly comfortable allowing a person to die naturally?
I don’t know what this argument is all about. Popa and Health (in the original news thread) Have already insulted and berated you for your outlandish, stupid, absurd, and idiotic opinions. Now all of you of inferior intellect, be quiet and just agree with them like you should. They are so much smarter than you and surpass you in every way, shape, and form.
And so my formula still stands. If my predictions are correct (and I believe they are) this topic will be closed very shortly.
syag: Of course, that is precisely what I am saying: that she was comfortable allowing someone old to die, and didn’t care enough even to ask a passerby to do CPR. Because she thinks old people should just die.
I don’t think she chose her job over what she thought was right–that is what artchill is claiming. I think she did exactly what she despicably thought was right.
And that is precisely the attitude that I am criticizing. She should be ashamed of herself, and America should be ashamed of itself for allowing such attitudes to develop.
I heard a report that she chose this home because she absolutely wanted no life extending measures done to her. She knew the policy and that is why she chose the place.
Ctrl Alt Del-
That wasn’t necessary or called for.
If anything, this thread is a good model of discussion, debate and disagreement without any insults being exchanged.
commonsense: That may or may not be true, but usually people who don’t want CPR just sign a DNR order. The home still did call the EMT’s, who doubtless did CPR. And the nurse could not have known that those were her wishes.
It’s murder, and I would like to reiterate my support of that.
At least we can protest. Even if we can’t do much about it.
When R’ Yochanon told a woman to stop going to shul so that she can die did he kill her r”l?
When R’ chanina ben Taradyon allowed the executioner to remove the wet pieces of wool that were keeping him alive longer was he advocating murder R”L?
When the Gemara says and Shulchan aruch codifies that when a goses is dying and a wood cutter is keeping him alive we can stop the wood cutter so as to allow the goses to die is he advocating murder r”l?
Withholding CPR is even a step removed from that(since there is no kum veaseh and no hinderence is being removed it is only POSSIBLE aid that is being withheld), calling it murder is am haaratzos. Dpending on the circumsatnces withholding CPR may be the correct thing to do
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