Ethical Issues with an Aging Population
Just last night at work, we had an 84-year-old woman with several comorbidities that fell and broke her hip. She was brought in by family who found her on the floor several hours after she fell. Orthopedics was called in for a consult and apparently deemed her not a candidate for surgery. The family was upset stating that she is a very active person who deserves to be able to walk again. With diabetes, CHF, COPD, CAD with a triple bypass, plus a host of other issues, cardiology could not sign off that she was healthy enough to survive the surgery to replace her hip.
This same night I was looking after a 41-year-old man who died during my shift from liver disease due to a lifetime of drinking. He …show more content…
We are also living much longer than our grandparents did. If we spend money today on teaching people how to live a healthy lifestyle, there may be hope for a more healthy aging population that will not drain resources treating exacerbations of chronic illnesses (Crippen & Barnato, 2011).
In the mean time, how do we ration health care ethically? In the above situation with the elderly woman, the family got their way and the woman is going to have a new hip – should we not be discussing the ethics of waste avoidance. Distributive justice has been discussed in the political field since the advent of our new healthcare act. Brody (2012) indicates, “Ethicists rush in where politicians fear to tread” (p. 1949). Such was the case of death panels and the heated political discussion of 2010.
As a user of healthcare, our focus needs to shift to stopping interventions that will not benefit the patient. There does come a time when enough is enough. We had a 99-year-old patient that was a full code a few weeks back. Why? Where is our ethical discussion of what is best for the patient should something happen to their heart? We need to spend health care dollars on useful services, even if they are expensive and stop the spending on useless
Just last night at work, we had an 84-year-old woman with several comorbidities that fell and broke her hip. She was brought in by family who found her on the floor several hours after she fell. Orthopedics was called in for a consult and apparently deemed her not a candidate for surgery. The family was upset stating that she is a very active person who deserves to be able to walk again. With diabetes, CHF, COPD, CAD with a triple bypass, plus a host of other issues, cardiology could not sign off that she was healthy enough to survive the surgery to replace her hip.
This same night I was looking after a 41-year-old man who died during my shift from liver disease due to a lifetime of drinking. He …show more content…
We are also living much longer than our grandparents did. If we spend money today on teaching people how to live a healthy lifestyle, there may be hope for a more healthy aging population that will not drain resources treating exacerbations of chronic illnesses (Crippen & Barnato, 2011).
In the mean time, how do we ration health care ethically? In the above situation with the elderly woman, the family got their way and the woman is going to have a new hip – should we not be discussing the ethics of waste avoidance. Distributive justice has been discussed in the political field since the advent of our new healthcare act. Brody (2012) indicates, “Ethicists rush in where politicians fear to tread” (p. 1949). Such was the case of death panels and the heated political discussion of 2010.
As a user of healthcare, our focus needs to shift to stopping interventions that will not benefit the patient. There does come a time when enough is enough. We had a 99-year-old patient that was a full code a few weeks back. Why? Where is our ethical discussion of what is best for the patient should something happen to their heart? We need to spend health care dollars on useful services, even if they are expensive and stop the spending on useless