is this legal

Published

An estranged family member says put him on end of life care. The Palliative care people tell a new nurse to take the propofol off the pump and run it wide open until the breathing stops.

The respiratory therapist pulls out the ETT.

This really happened.

Running Propofol wide open until a pt's respirations cease...the new nurse's last concern should be a lawsuit, because she just commited murder and will be spending some quality time in prison.

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One always deserves to die with comfort and dignity. Giving someone morphine for Respiratory distress which could perhaps be their last dose is comfort measures, one big dose is euthanasia.

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Specializes in ICU.

...No...

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Specializes in Hospice.

No disrespect intended to the OP, but I'm not believing this scenario.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Oncology, telemetry/stepdown.

I'm having trouble believing that as well. I work in micu and our hospital policy does not allow narcotics/sedatives to be run without a pump under ANY circumstances! And palliative care definitely does not = murder. Whoever was involved in this supposed situation was dead wrong (no pun intended) and could be in for a ton of trouble

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Specializes in ER/ICU/STICU.
No disrespect intended to the OP, but I'm not believing this scenario.

I agree. This sounds like some type of Ethics homework scenario.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

I don't believe the scenario either. If it is not a hypothetical, then it is my guess that the OP got a lot of the details wrong.

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Specializes in Hospice.

Agreed. Perhaps it would be better if the OP didn't share any more, however ... sounds like a lawsuit or criminal charges in the offing and best not to say too much on a public forum.

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Sounds illegal to me! The new nurse who ran the infusion wide open should lose their license and get charged with murder in my opinion. I don't see how someone could do that and live with themselves. We as nurses are advocates NOT murderers! I am a new nurse and even though I am training with an experienced RN, I would never do as I'm told if i thought it would be detrimental to a patient.

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

I very much doubt such a situation is real.

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