SACRAMENTO — An elderly woman who died after a nurse at her independent living apartment refused to provide CPR had chosen to live in a facility without medical staff and wanted to pass away without life-prolonging intervention, her family said Tuesday.
Lorraine Bayless’s family said in a statement they do not plan to sue the facility where the 87-year-old woman died last week.
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This may sound harsh, but, it sounds like a lot of the responsibility lies with both the family for not having a DNR in place (she was 87 after all) and with the nursing home administration for not having the protocol for this exact scenario written out and signed by the family. It's probably not all that unusual in assisted living facilities for residents to pass away given the age range of residents.
Read the article again. This was NOT an "assisted living facility". It was an "independent living apartment complex". Basically, the residents have their own independent apartments, but they also can choose to eat and or recreate in common areas that are paid for via their rents. They have become very common across the country. But they do not have medical facilities or back-up for the residents, unlike a nursing home or an assisted living facility, both of which do have medical back-up. There has been a lot of confusion about this situation. The employee of the apartment complex who identified herself as a "nurse" was not working as a nurse; she was a manager or director of the complex. I lived in an apartment building in Somerville for many years, which had a number of elderly residents mixed in with the rest of us. Periodically, one would become stricken or ill, but there were no on-site medical staff to aid the residents. I myself helped out one elderly woman who had taken a bad fall, until her visiting nurse arrived (I have no medical background, just a helpful neighbor). This California facility is not unlike that basic apartment complex, without medical staff on hand.
The "nurse" should lose her license.
She wasn't working as a nurse; she was working as the apartment manager/director.
Tell me, redglare2, what difference it makes whether she was a nurse, a nurse working as a manager, or a non-nurse working as a manager? Most people would assume she was a human being with some semblance of human feelings whatever her job. As it was, she turned out to be devoid of humanity and sounded like a robot in a grade B horror movie.
Are you defending that heartless, poor excuse for a human being? I wouldn't hire her to clean my cat's litter box.
She was 87 and died suddenly. That is how most older people want to go, not in an ICU on a ventilator. We don't have to save everyone. The chance of surviving an out of hospital resuscitation is very close to zero. You are just beating up a dead body. They nusrse should be commended for her restraint.
Another heartless person who likes to play god, right stow50? Who are you to decide who should live and who should die. You're as much of a monster as the nurse. Human life is ALWAYS valuable -- even your devoid of humanity life.
Why would you call 911 at all if you don't care whether the person lives or dies? This "nurse" should probably reconsider her career choice, and the CEO of the home should be prosecuted.
If you read the article, you would have seen that the woman who identified herself as a "nurse" was not working as a nurse or as any medical person; she was working as the director of the apartment complex. This was NOT a nursing home, and the apartent complex does not provide medical services to its independently living residents; they call "911" just like any of us would do in an emergency.
There you go again, Redglare2, defending a monster.
While it is true that the woman probably would have died anyway I agree with yogasong44 that where there was no DNR in place at least some effort should have been made to follow the instructions of the dispatcher and do CPR. It just seems to me that it would be easier to sleep at night if one at least makes the effort. I also agree that a facility that exclusively houses elderly people should make every effort to ascertain the wishes of the residents about what to do in such circumstances and get DNRs if that is what is desired, so that it is clear what the person's wishes are. What really struck me about this story is the response of the nurse or whoever she was when the dispatcher asked if there was anyone available to do CPR, and she said "Not at this time." It is such a dispassionate response. I could understand if the person on the telephone had been frightened, or conflicted, or upset and had said "No I am alone" or something of the sort. Maybe I am just reading too much into it, but it just struck me.
Is the Independent Living facility a CPR free zone? Any where else a person trained or knows the gist of CPR would try to revive(chest compressions without mouth to mouth is a viable option). Automatic defibrillator equipment are in gyms, schools, etc. The facility would not be liable for not having someone to do CPR, but to withhold CPR is uncalled for. If the woman had been anywhere else, on a bus, on the street she likely would have gotten medical attention. But at this facility she was allowed to die.
Here's a flip side of this issue and one which I'd love advice on. What happens if the reverse occurs? Specifically, what happens when a DNR is in the hospital file and a 95 year old man stops breathing naturally, and nobody notices the DNR in the file and a full scale resuscitation happens. This happened to my dad last year...
If the resuscitation is successful, I wouldn't consider that a tragedy, unless you were hoping he would die.
No, he remained dead. And bruised. Not a nice way for someone to die. Sigh.
Given the response of this woman's family, I would guess that the employee and the family both knew this woman wanted to die naturally, not suffering through the indignity of broken ribs and too much intervention. The employee may lose her job, but in her heart knows she did the right thing for this woman. Failure to file the right paperwork does not mean the wish for death with some dignity doesn't exist.
You guess wrong. The nurse would have said on the phone that it was the family's wishes if she knew that was the fact. Instead she was a robot repeating company policy.