Living Will: Nurse Intubates Patient - Court Says OK - Nurse Unaware of Living Will
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
November 1998
Quick Summary: The nurse followed accepted nursing standards by carrying out the cardiologist’s orders for life-saving measures for a patient in respiratory distress.
The nurse followed the attending physician’s orders by attempting to reach him in an emergency.
When the attending physician could not be reached, the nurse called a cardiologist. The cardiologist had no way of knowing about the patient’s living will. COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO, 1997.
The family filed suit against a hospital and a cardiologist for prolonging the life of a terminally ill relative contrary to the wishes the patient had expressed by signing a living will.
He signed the living will when he was admitted to the hospital in June. He survived and was discharged. He was admitted and discharged again, then admitted in August for the third and last time.
He went into respiratory distress during the night. The nurse was unaware of the living will. She could not reach the attending physician who was aware of the living will.
The Court of Appeals of Ohio ruled the nurse acted correctly by getting blood gases, by calling a cardiologist and by sending the patient to the ICU to be intubated and ventilated, that is, by taking standard life-saving measures, even though the patient in fact had a living will. The patient died later that day. Allore v. Hospital, 699 N.E. 2d 560 (Ohio App., 1997).