All people, including attorneys, should be careful with living wills and the do not resuscitate (DNR) clause. Our relative, who was an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) for 17 years, said that he would not sign a DNR because he thought that doing so would allow doctors to cause his death. We respected their decision, but we couldn’t believe that primarily life-sparing physicians were eager to end life. However, as it turns out he was right, a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) document gives a green light to a nursing home or doctor to determine when or if a person can receive life-preserving medical care.

When you are signing paperwork to place your loved one in a nursing home, they will tell you how humane a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) clause is, which does not require cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and / or a defibrillator that can break the ribs of your loved ones. . However, they do not tell you how bad it is for your loved one if they lose their mental or physical faculties unable to communicate their wishes for medical care and indifferent people determine that the DNR means that they do not want medical care to extend their lives. Although my wife had a power of attorney requesting medical care for her father, the nursing home staff simply ignored us and ignored our attempt to preserve the life of our family member.

Turns out they had our relative sign a DNR while he was in the brain fog of an infection. The doctor made a misdiagnosis claiming that this patient’s daughter (my wife) was mentally ill for trying to honor her father’s last wishes. She was unable to communicate properly with her father, so she had reservations about approving an amputation of her leg without his consent, which I thought was prudent. This doctor had never met or spoken to my wife and we had no psychiatric credentials that we know of. But when a doctor makes an entry in a medical record, it carries powerful weight in court, even if the information is false. So the nursing home staff took the point of view of the doctors stating that my wife was insane for trying to preserve her father’s life therefore instead of governing her rights as a power of attorney and they were going to erase legally the life of his father that he wanted to live.

Therefore, a DNR in some circumstances can be more powerful than a power of attorney. I don’t think we are the only victims of this abuse of a DNR clause that some wrong people use to prematurely extinguish the value of human life. The common practice with the fervent sales pitch to get family members to sign a DNR outside of humanity can be valid to some extent, but it can also be abused by people who believe they have the right to determine when a person dies.

It is advisable to include a clause or add a handwritten note stating that the DNR does not give either party the right to deny your loved one medical care. A DNR has the ability to turn a doctor or nursing home staff into a psychopath and you should have reservations about signing such a document.