End of Life Case Study

The Case Study-End of Life Care

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The Case Study-End of Life Care

David, a 58 years old patient was a former tobacco smoking user and was later diagnosed with lung cancer and HIV/AIDS.  Due to this, he was in pain in his whole body. Besides, he was living alone since his wife divorced him at the age of 45years. He had three children age 27, 20 and 16. He was always angry with the medical officers in the Hospital and refused to take the medication prescribed to him.  Notably, it was evident that he was suffering from loneliness and depression.  When he was admitted to the hospital, he admitted that he was experiencing abdominal pain. Despite this, he was unemployed, and from his medical history, he appeared anxious.  He did not want to see his children as well. However, he is willing to meet and talk with his friends and sister who is 40 years old. He appeared weak, and it was true that he was dying slowly.  We then arranged for a family meeting to delve into the issue. David complained that he did not want to see his family members and he died immediately when the family members were invited.

According to Hartley (2013), end of life care mainly refers to the medical support that healthcare providers give to the patients during the time surrounding their death (Hartley, 2013).  Notably, it is evident that older people usually live with various chronic health conditions and there is a need for healthcare providers to provide them with care before death (Hartley, 2013).  

From the case, it was unethical and risky for us to call a meeting with the family members despite the patient being against it. We also failed to consider the emotional needs of the patient.  It is important that nurses understand the patient's culture before providing medical services.  Notably, it is likely that the patient felt emotionally distressed when his family members were invited against his wish.

Our rationale to call a meeting with his family members was based on the patient refusal to take medications.  He was having intense pain, and we felt his family members would help in reaching a joint decision about his condition. As nurses, we believe that informed decision-making process is the best procedure to reduce ethical and legal issues in end of life care scenario (Johnson, 2017). However, we failed to provide the family members with enough information about the patient case.  I believe that it was not ethical for our team to force the patient to meet his family members and provide him with palliative care without proper consultation.   Instead of providing the patient with medications, emotional and spiritual therapy should have been adopted (Rocker, 2010).  The family members should have been involved at the beginning before giving drugs to the patient (Johnson, 2017).