This case being described as being "tantamount to euthanasia" is something to think about. It underscores many of the ethical dilemmas surrounding end-of-life or palliative care in the NICU finding the delicate balance between saving a life and merely prolonging a life until it's inevitable death.
Definitions
Palliative care are services that alleviate, lessen, or provide relief of symptoms which interfere with quality of life when curative treatments are no longer an option with a life-threatening illness.
Paralytics and Palliative Care?
My Palliative Care or End-of-Life background is in adult medicine, but the principles of 'doing no harm' and support someone, even a newborn, with comfort until the end of their life should be the same.
I don't remember paralytic agents being routinely used at the end of life with adults. I do remember an attending physician, a critical care doctor briefly sharing his own horrifying experiences under general anesthesia, anesthesia awareness. He described being paralyzed, awake and unable to let anyone know because of the medications he'd been given.
One of the concerns in these cases is that the two dying babies might have been paralyzed, still awake and unable to breathe. As Nurse Judy noted
"We have no way of knowing if those babies were suffering before he gave them the Pavulon, we have no way of knowing if they had any relief from suffering. They may have been totally aware of being unable to breathe."Not a pleasant thought, to have someone suffocate to death because of medications.
According to the National Cancer Institute Ethical Issues on Last hours of Life, "paralytic agents have no analgesic or sedative effects, and they can mask patient discomfort." In a study done in the late 1990's in the U.K. looking at the practices surrounding withdrawing a dying child from a ventilator, a minority of the respondents continued neuromuscular paralysis after the child had been withdrawn. In a more recent BMJ article from 2002, that looked at the topic of whether agonal respirations are necessary, these physicians proposed that gasping respirations at the end of life should be treated and in rare circumstances "the use of neuromuscular blockade to suppress prolonged episodes of agonal respiration in the well-sedated patient in order to allow a peaceful and comfortable death."
Perhaps this is a difference in the training between the U.S. and the U.K, perhaps it is a difference in the research being done. I think most of all the case underscores the need for still more education in palliative care in the NICU setting. This training would include beneficial and effective ways of managing pain and symptoms in the final hours of life as well as developing standard protocols for NICU physicians to follow to allow for the peaceful and comfortable death.
Who is the Patient - the Baby or the Family?
Another issue in this case, is who was the patient...the baby being treated, or the parents who will be surviving the deaths. In both of these cases reportedly the mothers and fathers of the babies "fully supported the doctor's actions and were grateful to him."
Nurse Geena's comments in response to the parents fully supporting the doctor serve as a reminder to be thinking who is being treated.
Goody for them, but I just can't quite get it out of my mind that the "treatment" was done to comfort the parents and not the baby.It almost seems that the parents, those who would be living on after the death, had become the primary focus for the doctor, not the dying baby.
Which is more harmful for the parents? Prolonging Death or the Method of Death.
How one copes with a death depends much on how the death was handled at the time. The ultimate outcome of this case will be the effect of these deaths on the surviving parents.
- Will they be more grateful that their baby's suffering ceased and the death was hastened?
- Will they be more harmed because the drugs used hastened their baby's death paralyzed their baby?
Other Bloggers' Thoughts:
Judy, RN. Pancuronium = Pain relief? For whom? Tigers Don't Jump Blog. July 10, 2007.
Geena, RN. On the verge of what society finds acceptable? Code Blog. July 10, 2007.
Kevin, MD. Prolonging life vs prolonging death. Kevin MD. July 10, 2007.
Sources:
BBC News. Doctor 'hastens babies' deaths.' July 5, 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/6273528.stm
BBC News. Doctor felt babies were suffering. July 9, 2007.
Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/6276900.stm
BBC News. Baby doctor cleared of misconduct. July 11, 2007. Available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/6291224.stm
Reid. M. When prolonging life becomes prolonging death. July 9, 2007. Times Online.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2045207.ece
National Cancer Institute. Last Hours of Life (PDQ®). Health Professional Version. Last updated. June 6, 2007.
Hatherill M, Tibby SM, Williams C. March MJ, Murcoch IA. Withdrawal of ventilation from the dying child. Clinical Intensive Care. 1997. 8;5:222-227.
Perkin RM, Resnki DB. The agony of agonal respirations: is the last gasp necessary?
Journal of Medical Ethics. 2002;28:164-169. http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/3/164
Additional information:
Dyer KA. My NICU Baby is Dying: Now What? Available at:
http://www.squidoo.com/marchofdimes/mynicubabyisdying
Dyer KA. My NICU Baby had Died: Now What? Available at: http://www.squidoo.com/mynicubabydied/
Carter BS. Bhatia J. Comfort/palliative care guidelines for neonatal practice: development and implementation in an academic medical center. Journal of Perinatology. 2001. Jul-Aug;21(5):279-83.
Full article available at: http://www.nature.com/jp/journal/v21/n5/abs/7210582a.html
Carter BS. Ethical Issues in Neonatal Care. eMedicine. Available at: http://www.emedicine.com/PED/topic2767.htm
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