911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

A resident in an independent living facility suffered a heart attack, a nurse at the facility called 911 and was transfered to the medical emergency division of the emergency number.

The 911 operator determined that the resident was not breathing enough and that CPR needed to be started in order to save the woman's life. The nurse at the facility refused to provide CPR, citing facility regulations. None of the other staff members seemed willing to provide CPR nor did they seem to make any meaningful effort to find a bystander or someone nearby (not bound by facility policy) to provide the life-saving procedure.

When paramedics arrived they transported the woman to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.

This is a shocking, and disgusting, thing to see happen. It should be no surprise the facility was a privately owned one. The 8-minute long 911 tape is just painful to listen to as the 911 operator pleads with various nurses to begin CPR, some nurses growing impatient with the pleas from the operator.

LINK

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

The only time a nurse should not use CPR is if a Do Not Resuscitate order has been requested by the client, and that doesn't seem to be the case in this situation.

I hope that the person responsible will b held to account. No care facility should have any right to deny CPR to a resident unless they have an DNR order.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

They likely won't. The nurses there followed procedure according to their employer. I doubt anything will really come of it. Nursing homes have a poor reputation in the United States, and it's usually for a good reason.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

That's horrible! I wonder what the facility's justification is for not allowing staff to do CPR. Something to do with liability, I suspect. I'm just shaking my head in disgust.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

Liability is almost certainly the reason. Their policy is to summon help and wait, but that's basically it.

And the nurses are most likely indemnified because they followed the facility's policy.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

I don't think that the facility's policy should stop the home from being liable.

Homes should reach a certain standard to be accredited.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

There wouldn't be any liability if they tried to revive the patient, even if they were unsuccessful. As it is, that facility is more likely to be sued for the staff's failure/refusal to even try.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

Not only has it been found that the woman had a DNR order on file, but the woman's daughter, who is herself a nurse, says they were well aware of the facilities policy and she was satisfied with the level of care her mother got and how the situation was handled.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...t-CPR-DNR.html

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

Did the home have nobody qualified to perform that procedure? I can see liability as an issue if someone untrained attempted it, but this is sickening.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

Well if she had a DNR that is totally different but maybe the nurse should have told the operator that during the call. The initial report does state that there was no DNR order. I would prefer another source rather than the Daily Mail.

No nursing home should have a blanket policy against CPR.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

Seems like all the stress and bad publicity could've been eliminated if the nurse who called had simply told the dispatcher that there was a DNR order on file (assuming she knew). Good communication is such a wonderful thing. :sigh:

ETA: Oops, sorry, didn't see Miss Chicken's similar post. What, you don't think the Daily Mail is the world's most reliable source of info? ;)

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

You're going to need a better source than the Daily Mail. It's a tabloid rag. The interesting part is that in all the articles I've read, most of them are very similar, save for a key paragraph found in the Daily Mail article that says:

This statement isn't found on ABC, WGN News, CBS, NBC, or even Yahoo News. No one else is talking about a DNR anything.

Apparently, the nursing home's policy is to wait until paramedics arrive, totally negating the purpose of first aid and emergency life procedures.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

Exactly, I would take The Onion as a more reliable source than The Daily Mail as no other media source has said anything about the woman having a DNR. If that was the case it certainly would have been mentioned and there'd be no issue here at all. Heck, if the woman has a DNR there'd be no reason to call 911 for help!

As for the question on someone being qualified to perform the procedure, I would assume that to be a nurse you'd have to know how to perform CPR.

Now, I have heard that the woman's family saying they were satisfied with the home's care, but I'd like to see how that develops. I find it very hard to believe that the family is satisfied that the NURSES at the facility basically sat there and did nothing while their family member died when CPR could have been performed and likely saved the woman's life.

I wonder why pay for having nurses at all if they're not going to be allowed to perform CPR or other life-saving procedures. If all you need is for someone to call 911 if needed then, hell, anyone can do that. I also wonder how the nurse as another human being and trained professional can just sit there idly by and not do a single, damn, thing to save this woman's life. That's what's disgusting about this.

The 911 operator PLEADS for this nurse to get someone to do CPR and the nurse is basically saying, "Meh, whadda you going to do? And stop yelling at me! Big meanie!"

LINK to an audio file of the 911 call. Pretty dramatic sounding, the context of who made the initial call is unclear the person wasn't even able to provide the 911 operator with address or where they were in the facility.

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

I've seen a lot stories today related to this one that seem to indicate that CPR is a lot less effective than most believe. I don't think it is cut and dried that CPR would have done the woman any good.

For an example. http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH...=dmtHMSContent

Re: 911 Operater Pleads With Nursing Home Nurse to Save a Life
 

No, it's not clear if CPR would have helped and it's true CPR isn't 100% effective. But it's probably a bit more effective than doing absolutely nothing.