The UK’s human rights watchdog is intervening in a landmark case over the use of “do not resuscitate” orders for NHS patients.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is an independent party to the case being brought by the husband of a woman who died in Addenbrooke’s hospital, Cambridge, last year.
David Tracey alleges medical staff at the hospital unlawfully issued two such orders without the consent of his 63-year-old wife, Janet, or discussion with her and that by doing so deprived her of her right to life and subjected her to degrading treatment. He also says that he was thereby denied respect for his personal and family life.
The Cambridge University Hospitals NHS trust, to which Addenbrooke’s belongs, and the Department of Health deny acting unlawfully under the 1998 Human Rights Act and dispute the Tracey family’s account of what happened at the hospital.
David Tracey also wants to force the government to draw up a national policy on the use of instructions not to attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNRs), which are issued on thousands of patients each year. The government insists the matter is better left to existing national professional guidance backed up by local trust policies. The Care Quality Commission, the NHS watchdog, has recently warned a number of hospitals to improve their recording of DNRs.
The EHRC generally intervenes only in cases where it can use its expertise to clarify or challenge an important element of the law. These usually involve serious matters of public policy or general public concern.
Merry Varney, a solicitor at Leigh Day & Co, who is representing the Tracey family, said after a preliminary hearing on Friday: “This case underlines the importance of a transparent, accessible and consistent policy regarding a patient’s right to know when a decision not to resuscitate them is made and to know how their views are taken into account and, where necessary, how to challenge a decision they disagree with.
“In this case we claim that neither family member or patient were consulted on whether a DNR order was placed on Mrs Tracey’s medical records.
“However the hospital claim they had the permission of a family member. The wider issue for society is that unless specifically authorised by the patient, it cannot be right that a family member can agree to a DNR and seems perverse considering the laws regarding euthanasia and the concerns often tabled in such debates of the risk of abuse from inheritance hungry relatives.
“We are not suggesting in this case that every patient has the right to demand cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but I do believe that in this day and age of patient choice and transparency, a competent patient must surely know when a decision to withhold potentially life sustaining treatment has been made.”
David Tracey said: “Following the first anniversary of Janet’s death I am pleased that progress is being made to clarify how DNRs can be used for patients and their families.”
A full hearing of the judicial review will take place at the high court in London later this year.
Same Difference 
Leigh and Day are wrong to say that patients should have Do Not Resuscitate Orders on them and not have the right of CPR and treatment, as a DNR includes withdrawing treatment and treatment includes being fed and watered in hospital. Because this is Euthanasia by omission by those with a duty of care and therefore not Human Rights compliant.
The DNR has given us Fascist Euthanasia like the Hunger Houses of 1930s Nazi Germany where elderly Germans and the disabled of any age were put in such houses for the purpose of them dying of thirst and starvation.
Today in England, nurses are merely executioners carrying out a Death Warrant on orders from a single doctor, by killing the patient (non-dying and even walking the wards) by overdose of morphine and want of thirst and starvation.
That is the modern day DNR. A death sentence. Because you are more likely to die with a DNR on you than not, and 80% of the patients who die in NHS hospitals have a DNR on them (source Patient Concern).
Statistics tells us that a patient is more likely to die with a DNR on them than without, which is because of the withdrawal of medical care and food and water.
So, in effect, hospitals imprison patients merely for the purpose of killing them and the state says nothing. Yes we are imprisoned, because an advocate / family member who removes their loved one from hospital is arrested by the Police (who only deal with criminal law) and convicted to 6 months in prison, when a criminal goes through decades of their nefarious career with Police cautions and non-imprisonment sentences of conditional discharge and supervision orders.
Neither family member nor patient should have the right to impose a DNR and neither should the medical community nor the state. Because absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The only means that patients can have equal rights to a cow in a farmer’s field instead of the lack and omission of rights of patients at all against a medical community with every right and privilege against the physical and emotional wellbeing of the patient, is to offer the right as standard by high court ruling to the presumption of the preservation of life to all patients, as enjoyed by those in a coma, and palliative care as standard, even if that means discharging the patient to a charitable hospice.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) should ban DNRs outright not only because of the fact that it is morally manslaughter, but also because it is used to discriminate against the old (anyone over 50 years of age according to the NHS) and the disabled of any age, but is in fact against us all.
Because one day there will be like the Nuremburg trials of the NHS and the Nazis at those trials were disallowed the defence of just following orders.
The DNR in England is not Human Rights compliant and brings the whole of the NHS to be nothing more than the abattoir of the working class whether disabled, elderly or fit but sick and in hospital. We are all equally discriminated against in NHS hospitals.
http://www.consistent-care-in-nhs.org.uk
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