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Questtion about a person's rights.

827 views 15 replies 8 participants last post by  Corpsie 
#1 ·
I found out yesterday that one of the people I take care of at the nursing home is dying from colon cancer. They told me she may only have a few weeks to maybe 2 months to live.

The problem is she is not aware of her condition. Her son who is her pwoer of attonery does not want her to know how bad off she is and has told the facility, docs etc not to let her know she's dying.

She is under the impression that she will be going back home after some therepy and strenghtning.


I have a problem with this, as I belive if a person is dying they should be informed. Unfortunatley i'm not allowed to say anything to her about it. Does anyone agre with what her son is doing?
 
#4 ·
All telling her will do is send her form a nursing home to death row without her even leaving the room. I just hope those who DO know are spending every minute they can with her.
 
#5 ·
I'd talk to her doc if I could.

Also, most states have an Ombudsman office for the elderly and for those in skilled nursing facilities whose job is precisely trying to sort out muddy issues such as this. There's a trade-off somewhere between what's in her best medical interests and her right to know - e.g. were she to immediately keep over from a stroke upon being informed, her best medical interests may over-ride her right to know.
 
#6 ·
My thing is if I was dying and did not know it, I would like to be informed regardless of my age. A person may want to do certain things before theydie, or try and make amends one last time with someone they have wronged. Or just to make peace with whatever faith they have.
 
#13 ·
Custer said:
It strikes me as the family's call in concert with the doctor.

I don't see what 3rd parties have to say about the matter.
Depends upon state law. In some states there's a Patient's Bill of Rights that may or may not have provisions requiring that a person be informed of their diagnosis and prognosis. Myself, I support such laws, because without that information it's not possible to provide informed consent to medical treatment - which means that treatment is involuntary, and involuntary treatment requires a court order and all sorts of swell stuff to be legal.

If I were terminally ill and neither my doctor nor my family would tell me, why, I'd just die.
 
#14 ·
Interesting point Dzerzhinsky, i'll have to go over patients BOR again. I won't say anything, as I belive that to be the place of a family member, doctor, or in some cases a close friend. Of those I am not.

The point is probably moot, becaseu with all things once it out among the other STNA's she will know most likely within a few days. Not the way she should find out, but knowing things in nursing homes that probably what will happen.
 
#15 ·
Dzerzhinsky said:
Depends upon state law. In some states there's a Patient's Bill of Rights that may or may not have provisions requiring that a person be informed of their diagnosis and prognosis. Myself, I support such laws, because without that information it's not possible to provide informed consent to medical treatment - which means that treatment is involuntary, and involuntary treatment requires a court order and all sorts of swell stuff to be legal.

If I were terminally ill and neither my doctor nor my family would tell me, why, I'd just die.
Nothing better than the government imposing some nice sounding rule on the participants.
 
#16 ·
SangRun Hunter said:
If they are trying to keep here from being depressed then I guess that is noble, but she will notice soon enough and what do they plan on then?
With colon cancer when you notice, it's way too late and you go downhill very rapidly and painfully.

What happens then is that she'll either die quickly or she'll be alive but hopped up on so many pain killers she won't have any idea what's going on.
 
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