Suicide Woman Uses Do Not Resuscitate
October 1, 2009 by Marijke Durning, RN
Filed under Death
Who is right?
A woman tries to commit suicide. She’s rushed to the hospital but she’s conscious still and hands the doctors a living will that stipulates that she doesn’t want to be treated, just kept comfortable as she dies.
The doctors respect her living will and don’t treat her. They feel that if they do treat her, she could come back after them later and accuse them of assault, since she specifically refused treatment. She dies.
Her family is angry, accuses the doctors of allowing the woman to die (which they did). They say, they had not choice because she told them not to. Who is right?
This did happen in the United Kingdom recently. Doctors in the UK have had directives that they were to obey living wills from people who refused treatment. Failure to comply could mean that they could no longer practice medicine.
Here is the whole story.
A 26-year-old woman was depressed. She’d tried to commit suicide nine times the year before, each time by drinking a poison. Each time, doctors saved her. Finally, the tenth time, she drew up the advanced directives telling the medical personnel not to save her and then drank the poison again.
How did she end up in the hospital? She called the ambulance herself. But, according to the letter she handed her doctor, it was not to be saved, it was so she could die in the hospital and not alone. The next day, she died.
What do you think the doctors should have done? Should they have saved her anyway? She was determined to die if she kept trying. Did she have a right to die? Was calling an ambulance something that would annul her desire to die? Were they right to respect her wishes?
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I think the drs did the right thing in this case. She wanted to die and would have sued them had they saved her life.
Someone should have given her the attention she needed after the first attempt though. Why was she depressed? That should have been dealt with immediately.
p.s. Too bad they can’t use these people’s organs for transplants for people who don’t want to die yet.
Hi Julia, My husband had an interesting take on it when I asked him last night. He felt that the suicide attempt should nul and void any advanced directives because of the deliberate act to die.
It’s an interesting debate. A sad one, but interesting nonetheless.
I agree with him. any directive that is written and signed under the duress of mental illness ( which is clearly a problem here) should be considered null and void!
I wonder about her family and think that the right to sue would be in their hands.
But who makes the decision that someone is mentally ill? Does a suicide attempt mean that person who attempts it is mentally ill? A recent case comes to mind in which a famous and accomplished couple took their own lives in Amsterdam, because of the wife’s terminal illness and the fact that the husband’s life had degraded to the point where he did not want to continue alone. I don’t think this couple is crazy; and IMHO, the answer to the second question has to be no.
As for depression, I am not a psychiatrist, but I will go this far and say that I don’t think that depression is ALWAYS mental illness; sometimes life (and dealing with human beings) can be quite disappointing and very depressing.
So I think the medical staff did the right thing in respecting her wishes, and without knowing more about her particulars than they did at the moment, to do otherwise would have been arrogant and wrong.
You’re right a suicide attempt SHOULD null and void a DNR. However, there is nothing that says that. If they had saved her, by law she would have every right to sue them.
Doctors are taught to obey those living wills, they couldn’t do anything. My question is if she had attempted her own life 9 times the previous year why was she not in a mental facility? After 2 or 3 times it was obvious she needed help, did no one care? I don’t blame the doctors at all that were in this case, however I do question the hospitals she’d been at before that would’ve known about her history because they could’ve questioned this and got her to see some help her kept her somewhere to protect her from herself.
I totally agree with the Doctors allowing her to die as that was her wish.
I find it very sad hearing that she wanted to die but not alone. Since we don’t know the history that lead her to all these attempts at suicide it really makes me wonder about her family. If she did indeed have any. I’m sure we can all see the cry for help—but was anything ever done. It’s just very tragic for someone so young to have no hope, no dreams, no desire for the future
Tough topic to discuss. It’s hard to know if there’s a right or wrong here. The legalities seem blurred. The wishes of the now deceased are blurred by mental anguish, which may not be illness per se. I have a friend whose son has tried to kill himself as many as nine times. Each time, he was let out of the hospital within days, though the parents would have wanted him kept under lock and key. After more than one suicide attempt, you’d think a patient would get the attention deserved. But that isn’t the case. I have no judgment in these instances. I just think they’re sad. If lives could be saved before they reach the point of death of the soul, wouldn’t that be best? Who has the answer for that?
Wow. This is a very tough one. My first instinct tells me that it is a doctor’s obligation to save everyone and anyone who is brought into the hospital – even if it’s a criminal who just murdered someone else.
Then again, this poor, poor woman. So sad no one could help her live.
My first reaction was to side with the doctors. If she had a living will that explicitly stated that do not resuscitate, I would not attempt to revive her. But then she phoned an ambulance herself; I think that would override the document and express a clear wish to be rescued. The living will was compiled after 9 attempts of suicide. Any one that attempts suicide 9 times isn’t of a sane state of mind and any legal contracts should be considered void.
If I was the doctor and would of known that she phoned ambulances herself, I would of revived her. A single life is worth my license to practice a thousand times over.
I think the doctors were absolutely right to allow her to die. Who are they to go against her wishes and keep her alive when she’s made clear what she wants to do with her own life and body?