The ICU Team Wants to Turn My Dad’s Life Support Machine Off, How Can I Make Informed Decisions?

https://intensivecarehotline.com/blog/quick-tip-for-families-in-intensive-care-the-icu-team-wants-to-turn-my-dads-life-support-machine-off-how-can-i-make-informed-decisions/

The ICU Team Wants to Turn My Dad’s Life Support Machine Off, How Can I Make Informed Decisions?

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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

So, today’s tip is about a question that we had from a reader who asks, “The ICU team wants to turn my dad’s life support machine off. How can I make an informed decision?” Now, that’s a great question to ask and it’s a question we get all the time. So, let’s just focus on how you can make an informed decision in a situation like that.

So, when families in intensive care are faced with such a confrontational situation, you’ve got to ask all the right questions so that you can make an informed decision.

So, the first question is why does the intensive care team want to stop life support for your dad? Do they have the right to do so? I can tell you given that we are consulting families all around the world, but predominantly in the U.S., Australia, U.K., Canada, and Ireland, you will find that in most jurisdictions, intensive care teams can’t just withdraw life support without a patient or family’s consent.

So, Number 1, I argue it’s illegal. We have turned many situations around such as the situation like you’re describing by successfully intervening and by pointing out local laws, policies, procedures, guidelines that withdrawing life support without patient or family consent is illegal. It’s unethical, it’s amoral.

Intensive care teams might argue that it’s unethical to continue life support. Well, I strongly disagree there, especially if it’s without a patient or family consent. If patients or families have an advanced care directive, that life support should be stopped, then that’s a different story. But I presume that with Rosie, with your situation here, that your dad has no advanced care directive, otherwise you would have probably pointed that out.

So, by having intensive care teams telling you that, “Tomorrow at three o’clock, we are withdrawing life support”, that can feel very confrontational. It’s might feel like setting up an execution or a killing. Those are strong words. I’m well aware that I’m using strong words here, but I have been in those situations myself in intensive care where I actually refuse such orders and successfully so because no one can force anyone to literally take someone off life support without consent from patient’s family, but also without consent from health professionals. So, those are the first questions you need to ask.

The next question you need to ask, Rosie, is your dad in a real or a perceived end of life situation? So, what do I mean by that? So, what I mean by that is I have made videos about the difference between real versus perceived end of life situations in intensive care.

So, what’s a real end of life situation? A real end of life situation is if someone is in intensive care, on life support, on multiple forms of life support, and no form of life support, no surgery, no nothing can help to save a patient’s life. No matter what has been done and what will be done, a patient will actually pass away whilst on multiple forms of life support, that is actually a real end of life situation.