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Health & Fitness

Healthcare

Show respect, don’t reanimate

Healthcare

25/08/2008Show respect, don’t reanimate

If you’re over 70 and you don’t want to be resuscitated after a heart attack, the government should respect that wish.

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The Stichting Hartpatiënten Nederland (Dutch Heart Patients Foundation), a patients’ pressure group says it doesn’t understand all the political commotion surrounding the resuscitation policy of the St Pieters & Bloklands care home in the town of Amersfoort.

You would think, it says, from the fuss that the home has been letting dozens of elderly people drop dead at random.

Recent policy

The Christian Democrats and other political parties have been demanding that the cabinet intervene at the care home, which recently adopted a policy of not reanimating elderly people after a heart attack unless they had specifically asked to

be resuscitated.

The home sent its residents a letter pointing out that people over 70 run serious risks of a significantly reduced quality of life if they are reanimated after cardiac arrest. It asked them to indicate in writing whether they wished to be reanimated or not in such a case.

Photo: Eggybird at Fickr

Following the announcement of an investigation by the Health Care Inspectorate, the home has suspended its new protocol: for the time being it will resuscitate all cardiac arrest victims, regardless of age.

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