My dad now lives in a care home as he has Alzhiemers. 3 weeks ago, he went in to hospital with a water infection. This was on the Thursday. In the early hours of the Saturday morning, my sister, who has POA, got a call from the hospital to say he was being moved to intensive care. It was nothing to worry about. They couldn't get his blood pressure steady and intensive care could better deal with it. He was there for over a week then moved to a ward. He seemed so much better but more tests were to be done.
Yesterday, my sister got a call to say he was being discharged. My other sister collected him and took him back to the care home. Dad seemed happy to be home. As my sister was gathering dad's things together, the matron told her his medication was on the table ready to take then she made a fuss of handing my sister an envelope and told her it was my dad's DNR form and she should hand it in to the care home. As you can imagine, my sister was shocked as none of us knew anything about it. She brought it home and asked me and my other sister to meet up to discuss it. We found the form was signed by a junior doctor when it should have been signed by 2 doctors. The time on it was an hour and a half after dad was taken to intensive care but no-one phoned my sister to tell her.
We have searched for information on this and found several stories where, after a loved one has passed away, family have found DNR notices in the records and not known about it. One woman recovered then found it. Again she knew nothing about it. Another elderly lady went for a hospital appointment and was asked to take her notes to the doctor she was seeing. She found one in her notes and was shocked by it. Age UK have said they think some hospitals are using DNRs as a form of euthanasia. Disability Now told one lady to check her notes to see if there was one there and to make sure it was in her notes that she wanted to be resuscitated and to let as many people as possible know about it.
I shudder to think how many people this has happened to. It seems that if you are elderly, you need to tell them you want to opt in to be resuscitated rather than opt out.
Yesterday, my sister got a call to say he was being discharged. My other sister collected him and took him back to the care home. Dad seemed happy to be home. As my sister was gathering dad's things together, the matron told her his medication was on the table ready to take then she made a fuss of handing my sister an envelope and told her it was my dad's DNR form and she should hand it in to the care home. As you can imagine, my sister was shocked as none of us knew anything about it. She brought it home and asked me and my other sister to meet up to discuss it. We found the form was signed by a junior doctor when it should have been signed by 2 doctors. The time on it was an hour and a half after dad was taken to intensive care but no-one phoned my sister to tell her.
We have searched for information on this and found several stories where, after a loved one has passed away, family have found DNR notices in the records and not known about it. One woman recovered then found it. Again she knew nothing about it. Another elderly lady went for a hospital appointment and was asked to take her notes to the doctor she was seeing. She found one in her notes and was shocked by it. Age UK have said they think some hospitals are using DNRs as a form of euthanasia. Disability Now told one lady to check her notes to see if there was one there and to make sure it was in her notes that she wanted to be resuscitated and to let as many people as possible know about it.
I shudder to think how many people this has happened to. It seems that if you are elderly, you need to tell them you want to opt in to be resuscitated rather than opt out.