Are Dnr Orders Causing Neglect in Hospitals?

Kyle Smithers

Opinion article

5/2/17

Are DNR Orders causing neglect in hospitals?

        DNR or do not resuscitate is an order that can be put on someone when they are terminally ill or just at an old age.  If someone has one of these on them the doctor is not allowed to use any kind of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the case of cardiac or respiratory arrest.  These can be given to patients in or out of the hospital, but our focus will be on the neglect these cause patients to receive while in the hospital.

        “Some people should be allowed to die when it is truly the end.  But that ‘logic’ can be, and is, abused. People are labelled as ‘DNR’ inappropriately so that even minimal, so that minimal, ordinary treatments like providing food and water are denied them with the intent that they die sooner, much sooner” (HPA president Ron Panzer).  Doctors like to slap a DNR on people who have terminal illness.  Once the patient has this order on them the doctors try to push them towards death a little faster than they were already going, thus turning the DNR less into a ‘if they die don’t save them’ and more into a ‘hurry up and die’.  The doctors who use these just want to get the patients that most likely won’t make it out of their hair, because that’s less work for them.

        A DNR is supposed to just make it so people don’t use CPR or try to resuscitate someone after their heart has stopped beating, but when physicians see a DNR their willingness to do anything to help the patient plummits.  Mary Beach, an assistant professor at Bloomberg School of Public Health, writes about this in her article ‘the effects of DNR orders on physician decision-making.  She states “Patients with DNR orders were significantly less likely to be transferred to an intensive care unit, to be intubated, or to receive CPR. In some scenarios, the presence of a DNR order was associated with a decreased willingness to draw blood cultures...central line placement...or blood transfusion... The presence of a DNR order may affect physicians' willingness to order a variety of treatments not related to CPR”.  Patients don’t get the help they need when they have a DNR.  Because of physicians just wanting to get rid of them a DNR is a curse to people with terminal illness.  They get neglected, ignored, and urged to die.