If this is where our world is headed...
http://gma.yahoo.com/elderly-woman-d...182806550.html
...then I guess this makes more sense: (??)
http://fox8.com/2013/03/03/firefight...apped-in-fire/
If this is where our world is headed...
http://gma.yahoo.com/elderly-woman-d...182806550.html
...then I guess this makes more sense: (??)
http://fox8.com/2013/03/03/firefight...apped-in-fire/
Ophthalmic Optician, Society to Advance Opticianry
Who failed her, the stranger fearing of losing her job or her children fearing losing a second income to stay with her in her last year?
I understand the business aspect, I don't understand the humanitarian especially your own mother.
As a nurse, I wonder about the legalities of not doing CPR. In most (maybe all) states licensed and registered nurses are required by law to do everything possible to sustain life in all situations. The only way this would be legal (not right, just legal) is if there is a definite DNR order that is known by all concerned. The right and proper thing for anyone to do is to try to save her.Originally Posted by Johns
This is wonderful. It's one of the few things that have made me happy lately.
Agreed that the nurse "could" of helped and probably "should" of helped. But when does "policy" trump protocol?
Have to keep in mind here according to the story the lady "was taken by ambulance to the hospital where she died."
That leads me to believe she was alive when she left the nursing home.
The news report I heard indicated that State/Federal laws regarding intervening trumped "company policy", and that under Florida State law, the nurse was shielded and was REQUIRED to assist.
Supposedly, there is an internal investigation going on at the facility. I think we will see the nurse lose her state license for refusing to render assistance, the company fined or sanctioned, and that many lawsuits will be started. I also think that the facility will start to lose residents...I sure would not want a family member at a facility where life-saving procedures are not allowed by licensed medical personnel.
I'll bet there is a DNR somewhere.
My guess is the facility doesn't want to litigate this through the media.
Note towards the end that all residents are informed of the policy before admission.
Here's the full statement:
The executive director of Glenwood Gardens, Jeffrey Toomer, defended the nurse's actions, saying she did indeed follow policy.
"In the event of a health emergency at this independent living community our practice is to immediately call emergency medical personnel for assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such personnel arrives," Toomer said in a written statement. "That is the protocol we followed."
Toomer offered condolences to the woman's family and said a "thorough internal review" of the incident would be conducted.
He told KGET-TV that residents of the home's independent living community are informed of the policy and agree to it when they move in. He said the policy does not apply at the adjacent assisted living and skilled nursing facilities.
A call to the facility by The Associated Press seeking more information was not immediately returned.
If there was a DNR, the nurse had the responsibility to inform 911 that there was one.
Hmm... Again I'll speculate that the policy was developed to be the most efficient way of getting the body to a place better able to process it. Perhaps the nurse was not positive of the DNR and was acting with only the knowledge of facility policy. Yeah- kindda cold but I'm calling it like I see it.
I'll take an ambulatory 87 and a heart attack as my second preferred way of death. First being dormation.
Personally I think this was a cold and heartless decision. I would not let 'policy' prevent me from saving a life and I cannot understand why anyone else would.
OptiBoard Administrator
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OptiBoard has been proudly serving the Eyecare Community since 1995.
In 2006 my wife and I sold the big house and bought an independent living cottage at the Overlook Masonic Home in Charlton, MA. One of the attractions to this move was the fact that the nursing home, critical care and all of the other services were colocated on the campus.
There is a definite legal difference between "hospital/nursing home" and the independent living component of senior care. When you are living in an IL (Independent Living) facility it is esentially the same as being out on the street. When Jane went into cardiac arrest in our cottage I called 911 and they responded immediately, treated her and transported her to hospital. There was no obligation or expectation for the Overlook to provide any care. This was made known to us when we made the move.
I guess that with all the "rules" that exist today no one can really be sure what to do. Common sense does not at all enter into the equation
Which is why the less the nurse says the better. If push comes to shove the courts will decide.
My mother in-law had a DNR, and one day while we were visiting, she had a heart-attack. My wife looked at her, asked her mom what she wanted to do, and she said, "Sit her and pray. Do NOT call 911". She did indeed have a heart attack, but survived, and lived another 3 years.
Ophthalmic Optician, Society to Advance Opticianry
I have never heard of such a thing! Whoever thought up that policy should be put on trial for murder in the 2nd degree.
There's a really odd feature in the common law of torts which holds that no person has a duty to render aid to a victim except in specific circumstances (such as, for example, when the other person caused the victim's injury, or has some prior relationship with the victim that would impose such a duty). Another, possibly equally odd feature is that once you start to render aid, to stop rendering aid could be negligent. And, if you do harm in rendering aid, you could also be held liable for that harm.
Some jurisdictions have enacted "Good Samaritan" laws that insulate persons who render aid immune from liability under certain circumstances. Some such laws actually include a positive duty to render aid, but I think those are rare. California's Good Samaritan statute has been interpreted narrowly - see http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...871331,00.html.
These are pretty ancient principles, and not a result of any recent degeneration in the sense that the world makes.
I'm not your lawyer.
Last edited by shanbaum; 03-04-2013 at 06:57 PM.
My wife worked at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston for many years. She also was involved in Hospice in Connecticut. She related a number of cases where the moral concept of letting a person go was the correct thing to do. For many patients the DNR order was a blessing. Little good and much harm is done by breaking the ribs of a 97 year old terminal patient administering CPR. I think that there is much that we don’t know about the situation cited and we can debate this thing until the cows come home and I surely do not want to play God and pass judgment.
May she rest in peace and let perpetual light shine upon her.
Last edited by rbaker; 03-05-2013 at 11:51 AM.
I bought you a beer last year. I'm pretty sure that makes you my lawyer. Can you give me a legal opinion on that?I'm not your lawyer.
RT
The problem is that we live in a world where we even THINK about the law first when it comes to a situation like this. The reality is that people care more about animals than humans.
I blame the first jackhole who sued McDonald's when they spilled their own hot coffee on their own lap.
There's more to that coffee case than you realize.
"After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have pounced on this case, often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap.
The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused.
During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.
McDonalds also said during discovery that, based on a consultants advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.
Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.
Plaintiffs' expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.
McDonalds asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the companys own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving.
McDonalds also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could suffer thirddegree burns from the coffee and that a statement on the side of the cup was not a "warning" but a "reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard."
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
Wesley S. Scott, MBA, MIS, ABOM, NCLE-AC, LDO - SC & GA
“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.” -Albert Einstein
Well said. If you spend time with many (not all!) elderly folks you'll here their greatest fear is coming out of a situation like this attached to a respirator and unable to enjoy any quality of life.
It makes for a good story though so the media will keep this alive for a while I'm sure.
Like Dick said, bottom line is we just don't know yet all the extenuating circumstances but it looks like we eventually may.
The details of the “coffee case” aside, we should be aware that outsize damage awards have a purpose. Do the defendants “deserve” such large awards? No – although you might be surprised just how much money it takes to make a victim “whole.” That’s one of the basic purposes of tort law: to shift the burden of an injury from the victim to the person who caused the injury, and to put the victim back to the position he was in prior to the injury, to the extent possible. Usually, that’s not really possible - you can’t un-burn someone. The next best thing is to make the victim indifferent to having been injured by paying him.
Punitive damages serve the additional purpose of changing the behavior of the “tortfeasor” (the wrongdoer, the defendant). In this case, McDonald’s has to be forced to pay enough to change the balance of their internal calculus, wherein they decide how hot to make their coffee, from “so hot that it’s still hot when people get to the office, even if that causes some people to get badly burned, because we’ll sell more additional coffee at the hotter temperature than we’ll pay in damages to persons who get burned by it” to something like “as hot as it can be without being dangerous.” Merely making plaintiffs whole might not do the job – a few million dollars is not significant enough in the context of a 25+ billion dollar business to affect its behavior.
This system provides a kind of market for safety, a kind of self-regulation, instead of overt regulation by the government. We could have regulations in place of these kinds of suits (or at least, this kind of damages) – a law that says, “coffee served by restaurants shall be no hotter than 150 degrees Fahrenheit.” Our existing system incentivizes the market to discover an “optimal investment in safety” and it does it with a kind of trial-and-error approach. Make your coffee too hot, and a jury punishes you if, and only if, it actually causes harm. If it does, you know better; if it doesn’t, then, presumably, your coffee may not be “too hot” after all.
Well, maybe; but if so, my putative representation of you would be limited to matters related to the mutual consumption of beer. Did you want me to prepare an engagement letter?
When I was 5, I was sitting in a restaurant next to my tea drinking gramma, and the server dropped a hot cup of tea in my lap. I was lucky enough not sustain any third degree burns.
I understand that there have to by laws and rules to protect both individuals and business. However, anyone who purchases a near boiling cup of liquid to consume while sitting in a moving vehicle should assume some risk of it spilling from the disposable cup/lid system that is holding said liquid.
Back to the issue, I still think the nurse not willing to help was kinda crappy.
That is my two cents.
unfortunately we live in a world where we have to cover our own backs before helping others. the nurse was probably afraid (and i'm sure justifiably so) that she would lose her job if she violated "policy." So regardless of whether or not she did the "human" thing, she probably did the right thing for her. its the company policy, not hers.
as far as the mcdonalds coffee incident, something that could easily have been solved by just going in and ordering the coffee inside with a stable table to add your condiments, and none of this would have happened? i mean they have caution hot written all over them. its like taking a sip of soup that just came off of the oven and blaming the cook for it being hot, isn't that the point?
"what i need is a strong drink and a peer group." ... Douglas Adams - Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
This incident is disturbing...the really disturbing part, (aside from the fact that someone would call 911 and argue over why they would/will/can NOT try to help someone in dire need,) is listening to the 911 call....The lady (nurse?) who called was so calm and acted like it was no big deal NOT to help, or find someone who could try to help her. I can only imagine how frustrated and shocked the dispatcher must have felt.
Last edited by Now I See; 03-05-2013 at 12:18 PM. Reason: added words
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