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128 points mykowebhn | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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asdfj999 ◴[] No.44725886[source]
If I could change one thing about healthcare, it would be how we handle end of life care. Sadly, hospitals are full of 80-90+ year old people who cannot walk or talk for years, advanced dementia plus many other serious comorbidities, with severe malnutrition and recurrent aspiration pneumonia, with large non-healing sacral ulcers, who shit and piss themselves, and the family continues to insist we "do everything" to help this person. It is by far the most demoralizing part of working in healthcare, in my opinion, and an astronomical amount of expenditure and effort goes into torturing these people - at the direct order of the family - only to prolong suffering a few more months.
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hombre_fatal ◴[] No.44725934[source]
In most places is it even possible to give these people mercy and opt them out of life if they and/or the family wanted to?
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asdfj999 ◴[] No.44725969[source]
At least in the US, in general we talk to the family about code status "Do you want your loved one to receive CPR if their heart stops?". We can make them DNR/DNI. Then next discussion would be hospice. They would have a hospital bed sent to their home, be discharged with a weekly nurse visit and doctor available by phone/text, and get minimal medications focused on minimizing suffering.
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1. polotics ◴[] No.44726125[source]
DNR: Do Not Resuscitate DNI: Do No Intubate