Court Judgement Reaffirms End of Life Decision Making
David Nitkin, EthicScan’s President, draws attention to the way this Supreme Court decision highlights differences between the law, ethics, and morality. The Justices affirm the requirement in law that, in jurisdictions which have Consent and Capacity Boards, physicians must get consent for removing life-sustaining interventions, like ventilators and feeding tubes.
Nitkin Notes: “Family and human rights advocates are likely pleased with the decision, but health care professionals must surely sigh upon reflecting on complex end of life dilemmas. Many patients are too far gone to communicate their wishes. A lot of patients have never given directions when entering hospital about what are their end of life wishes. And the often contradictory advice of adult children about what are the needs of their father, mother or child is a minefield of tension and quandary that may conflict with other important professional and societal values”.
Given the affirmation of the patient’s interests as paramount, health practitioners and facilities will have to learn how to manage an increasing demand for “doing everything.” The process in these situations is important as no single decision making tool or model will suffice. For Physicians who are reluctant to challenge SDM decisions at the CCB for various reasons, this webinar will help you understand that there are things you can do internally to help resolve many of these disagreements before going to the CCB.
EthicScan has scheduled five courses or webinars on this topic. The common thread through these program offerings in Canada and the U.K. is that there are things you can do internally to help resolve many of these disagreements before going to the CCB, and attending one of these EthicScan courses/webinars is a good start. These education programs are particularly useful for professionals from smaller hospitals that don’t have ethicists on staff and may not even have fully functioning ethics committees – they are the organizations who will be in most need of help, and this is an opportunity to support them in particular.