i've worked ltc for my entire nursing career and i love my little ole men and women literally to death! what i want to know is that when they reach this point in their lives where they need us to basically help keep them functioning for as long as possible even if that means when they are in a vegitative state, i ask you, why are most of the oldtimers not on dnr status? on our unit our maximum censes is 60. right now we have 57. the average age is 73 and more than half are not dnr. why would you not want to be dnr? and what is the point? am i the only person with these feelings? i'm not sure if i should feel guilty about thinking this way about the people i take care of day in and day out.
we have a resident who is 79 y/o and has been there 3/4 of my nursing career in a vegatative state complete with gt, has had pneumonia god only knows how many times and in my opinion should have died along time ago. the staff have come to call him "uncle jimmy." uncle jimmy"? i asked one day to another staff nurse. and she said, "oh yes, uncle jimmy has paid for all of the neices and nephews college tuition. he is 100% service connected (veteran) and receives $1600.00 a month which his brother has control over his finances and receives his money. he has made it very clear that under no circumstances does he want his demented brother a dnr!" can you imagine keeping someone alive just for their money??? there should be a law against things like that. when it comes time for uncle jimmy to pass on, a code is supposed to be called and we are to vigorously work on him. oh dear god, let the man go.
. that only goes to show you that people will do anything for money. how cruel is that??? :o
:o