Ombudsman disturbed at findings of study
The study found that 58% of medical consultants nearly always discussed a patient’s resuscitation status with relatives; 37% said they did sometimes and 3% indicated that they almost never did.
“Just under 6% were not making resuscitation decisions at all, with some of them leaving it to junior doctors,” Ms O’Reilly told 200 members of the Irish Association of directors of Nursing and midwifery (IADNM) at their meeting in Tullamore, Co Offaly, yesterday.
Ms O’Reilly also suspected that the problem was sometimes left to nursing staff and would have been recorded if directors of nursing and midwifery had been included in the survey.
The Ombudsman stressed that people had a fundamental right to a dignified death in hospital.
“Over half of all deaths in Ireland occur in hospitals and it is, therefore, vital that the experience of an estimated 15,000 people and their relatives should be a matter to be taken into account in consideration of this issue,” she said.
“Such experience could lead to the adoption, within the health services, of the concept of a good death; the right of people who are dying in hospitals to a dignified death, as pain-free as is possible and in conditions which enhance their dignity and privacy.”
Ms O’Reilly said patients were also entitled to have proper medical records maintained on their treatment, but this was not always the case.
“It is the experience of my office that when we have had occasion to examine patient files we have often found them to be unsatisfactory as a record of the various elements of a period of hospitalisation,” she said.
However, she added, international research showed that Ireland was not unique in this situation.
Reports in Britain revealed a lack of structure, disorganisation, illegibility, absences of problems or diagnoses.
Similar problems were revealed in Australia and, in Spain, 15% of records reviewed were so illegible as to be rendered meaningless.
“It is beyond comprehension that caring professions can be so lax in this regard. It demonstrates a level of disrespect and disregard, I would hope unintentional, for the patient.”
IADNAM president Barbara Fitzgerald urged Health Minister Mary Harney to raise the number of specialist nurses involved in the care of the elderly.
