New Futility Case: Siner v. Kindred Hospital Indianapolis

The Court of Appeals of Indiana issued a decision that allows a family to proceed with its medical malpractice action alleging that a hospital's unilateral DNR order caused the patient's death.  Facts"October 26, 2007, eighty-six-year old Geraldine Siner became a patient at Kindred Hospital. Geraldine suffered from advanced dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease and as a result could no longer care for herself. Geraldine’s son, John Siner, was designated as her health care representative and had power of attorney." "Upon Geraldine’s admission to Kindred, and several times thereafter, John informed . . . Geraldine’s attending physician, that Geraldine was to be a ‘full code’ patient. On November 16, 2007, Kindred’s Ethics Committee decided to make Geraldine a No Code/Do Not Resuscitate (“DNR”) patient, meaning that Kindred staff would not attempt to resuscitate her in the event that she went into respiratory or cardiac arrest (otherwise known as “coding”)." "The Ethics Committee did not receive approval from John or any other family member to change Geraldine’s status in this manner. Geraldine’s health continued to decline over the following two weeks and Kindred declined to keep Geraldine on ‘full code’ status despite her family’s protests." Expert TestimonyPlaintiff's expert Timothy Pohlman opined both that the hospital was negligent and that this negligence caused Siner...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tags: Health Care medical futility blog syndicated Source Type: blogs