The Denver Post reports on a lawsuit by Daniel Self against a number of individual and institutional healthcare providers. According to his Complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, Mr. Self completed a "CPR Directive" in January 2009. In April 2009, correctional officers and EMTs resuscitated Mr. Self in contravention of this directive.
While Mr. Self's lead claims are constitutional, he also alleges claims for negligent supervision and battery. While this case is special given its prison context, expect to see more lawsuits for wrongful resuscitation.
2 comments:
Interestingly, Colorado law treats DNR orders separately from living wills (although a living will may incorporate a DNR). Living wills apply only to "terminal" patients who have been unconscious for more than a week, but are otherwise at the patient's discretion. A DNR may be written for non-terminal patients, but must be signed by a physician to be valid. It's not clear how this prisoner would get a physician to write a DNR for him, unless the prison doc did it; if not, it may not be legally valid in that state.
The general point of the suit, however, makes sense: if his order was valid, they should have followed it. The unusual conditions of a prison are a complicating factor but the prison officials should have anticipated that (especially after they were presented with the DNR order for this particular prisoner). I don't know if there is precedent for a suit for non-compliance with a DNR; the unusual circumstances of this case may muddy the legal waters; a cleaner test case might have been desirable, but that's the way things go.
You're undoubtedly right that there will be more of these cases. From today's perspective, they seem natural - there is an expectation of compliance, and there should be legal liability for non-compliance just as with any other patient directive. But what a change has occurred over a single generation! I suspect we'll soon see courts routinely upholding rights to DNR, if not in this case, then in others.
Thanks Kevin.
There have been successful lawsuits for resuscitation contrary to expressed wishes.
I need to collect these together in one place to give them more salience. Too many providers WRONGLY perceive risk from following DNAR orders but not from ignoring them.
Post a Comment