I personally would not sign a “do not resussitate” for myself, as I know when it’s time for me to go, I will die regardless of the fact that I’m kept on machines or not, nothing can save me.
Khudanakhasta, I should face such a situation, I don’t think I could ask that life support be ended on a loved one, it’d be too difficult of a decision to make. But sometimes circumstances do make us do things we would normally not otherwise consider. I don’t know.
If you don’t mind me asking, since you (proudpakistani) are in the medical field…if you were to be faced with a situation where you were taking care of a patient who did not want to be resussitated, what would your course of action be if that person went into a coma and had minimal chances of coming back? Would that conflict with your moral values? And how would you deal with that considering that there could be legal liabilities.
I have to agree with Goliko and Sehar - it’s not murder but the end of life support. God forbid I have to take such a decision, I don’t think I could choose to end life support for a loved one. But personally, I wouldn’t like to be kept alive just by machines, or be mourned or be a burden on my loved ones. And I don’t think it’s fair to pass the burden of the decision to a loved one, so I think I’d likely sign the Do not resuscitate form BUT on the other hand, unethical activities in the medical arena do occur, what if they kill me just to get that vital organ.
Back to square one But I do believe that if Allah has willed your death then no machine can sustain you.
Sadzz, its always a hard decision. But there is only soo much yu can wait. I think in NY death is defined as brain dead and when you are brain dead your heart can still be beating.
Sir Galahad, the issue that i am discussing here is that even if we let these people stay on machines and we hope that they come out of this coma, they already have soo many other illnesses that they will be back on the same machines in very little time. But i would love to see the discussion you are having. The link you provided for some reason takes me to the front page of Yahoo. Can you please give me the link again.
Sehar we see people all the time that have DNR signed. There are a few people I have seen with DNRs that were resussitated before and later on they signed DNR when they came to hospital again. As far as the moral values go, a persons wish is always to be accepted. If a person does not want treatment we cannnot force it on them, unless we can prove that the patient is mentally uncapable to make a decision. I have had patients where the code was called and we get to the room just to find out that the person is DNR, and the attending just told us to go and get some coffee and we will call him in a little bit. Just the other day I had a Pakistani guy in the ER whose kidneys had basicaly failed and his pottassium was sky rocketing, and he did not want dialysis even after we told him that he might not live more than a few days without dialysis. He just said keh yeh to sub bahanay hootay hain. Marna to sub ko hi hai(I couldnt stop thinking about that one episode in scrubs). And as far as you go with the patients wishes, there are no legal problems. Some patients even come to the hospital and just say it verbally that they dont want to be resussisated and we have to accept that. Problems usually come when the person does not have any advance directives and one sibling wants the treatment to be withdrawn and the other wants to continue with it.
Aishaa as LUC pointed out in his post above, active euthanasia is not allowed in Islam, but passive euthanasia where the judgement tells that there are not many chances for survival of patient, it is allowed to discontinue treatment.
Lil Mermaid, no one will kill you for your organs. By the way do you know what is the worst time to get sick in US? Its July to September where there is a huge increase in deaths in hospitals in US due to new residents comming in and making mistakes. But i aggree with you about unethical activites happening in medicine.
I aggree that its hard to make these decisions, but sometimes when i see some of these patients lying in bed for years without any movement, i just wonder if that was what they would have wanted.
But I do believe that if Allah has willed your death then no machine can sustain you.