Commonplace to starve someone to death?

[HM7380]

I'm a new nurse (I've only been practicing for 2 months now) and am working at a LTC facility. Today, a resident came back from the hospital, and I was told that they were strictly NPO, and that the only thing they were allowed to have was PRN morphine and ativan?!? No water, no ice chips, etc. The woman had a blood clot to her brain last Thursday (and a seizure as a result) and apparently her family signed an order for a DNR... She's still responsive to pain, will look at you when you say her name, and even tears up on occasion. I feel HORRIBLE about not being able to give her anything but 3cc's of liquid meds on my shift. Is this common practice to starve someone to death? I don't want to go against Dr's orders and give her something to drink, but every fiber in my body says I'm supposed to help her, even if she's dying, and to make her as comfortable as possible.

Any help/similar stories would be appreciated. I'm having a very hard time coping with this.

[TiredMD]

Ugh. Its going on 19 days now and she's still alive. I'm actually to the point where I'm praying for her to go in her sleep... I just keep giving her p.o. morphine as much as possible.

When you dehydrate, you go into renal failure and become uremic. It is essentially "going to sleep". Give her all the morphine you want, but recognize that she's not hurting (at least not from the starvation/dehydration).

[ZippyGBR, BSN, RN]

I spoke to some of the other nurses today, and apparently she has a subdural hematoma. I guess that was what caused the seizure last Thursday, and the lethargy. I'm assuming that most people (especially the elderly) don't recover from those?

more to the point it appears that the medical staff have decided she is not fit enough for an operation to remove the haematoma -assuming that the chronic onset of the subdural wasn't days to weeks before the seizure etc and the inital cause of the brain damage ....

agressive medical management requires a patient with sufficient physical reserves to be agressively managed, many people in 24 hour care environments already do not have that physical reserve

compassionate end of life care and let nature take it;s course ? or give the family false hope of a surgical 'cure' and be faced with 'can't wean' and/or such a poor recovery from surgery the decision ends up 'when to switch off the vent/ vasoactive meds etc..