Originally posted by: TheVrolok
Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Originally posted by: Mo0o
Originally posted by: Zaitsev
Are there any repercussions for rejecting a "treatment" like this? Once I found out how much the damn sock cost, I would have said balls to that.
Nope. You can reject anything and everything ,
including life saving treatment, that's your right as a patient.
Except in an emergency. If something is immediately life or limb threatening, even if you are alert, oriented and capable of making your own medical decisions then you can be overruled. However, if you can walk out we cant stop you even in an emergency situation(unless you aren't mentally competant)
Kinda convoluted? Even if you can't physically walk out, you can absolutely refuse life saving treatment provided you're of sound mind. All that matters is your mental state and legal guardianship.
Which some people cant walk out and refuse and refuse....then once your mental status/respiratory status/cardiovascular status starts to fail you can't resist anymore and unless you have a DNR or someone acting as your durable power of attorney, or living will, something along those lines we'll do everything medically that we can. It is kinda twisted in a way...but we as medical professionals get stuck between a rock and a hard place at times.
Case and point, we had a fairly sick guy come in last week to the ER. We told him that despite him being clear of mind and mentally competent that he needed to be placed on a ventilator, sooner rather than later, he refused. However, he was much too weak to walk out. So we took care of him as best we could given his illness and waited. Ironically enough when the ICU resident came to examine the patient, the patient became unconscious and was promptly intubated and placed on a ventilator, despite his earlier refusal it now became medically emergent and he had no living will, power of attorney or a DNR. So we did what was deemed medically necessary.
But on the other hand, if we did nothing he was going to die within hours from his illness.