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Forensicwx

Final Roll Call 4153. STLCO 10-42 10/13 @ 1519
A Mumbai nurse who was in a coma for 42 years after being sexually assaulted while working in a hospital has died...

Aruba Shanbaug suffered severe brain damage and was in a vegetative state after she was raped and strangled by a hospital worker in 1973.

Shanbaug was diagnosed with pneumonia last week and had been on a life support system for the past few days......

Shanbaug's case sparked a debate over India's euthanasia laws after a Mumbai-based author and friend of the nurse petitioned the courts to stop force-feeding her through a tube so her suffering would not be prolonged.

India's Supreme Court rejected the petition filed......sought euthanasia for Shanbaug, saying the court should "end her unbearable agony."

The case was opposed by nurses at the hospital who took turns taking care of her for more than four decades after Shanbaug's family said they were unable to support her.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/05/18/indian-coma-nurse-dies/27518771/
 
As a person that has personal experience in these matters, it hurts me profoundly to see someone with a PEG tube and ventilator in place for prolonged periods of time.

There is no quality of life. None.

95% of most nurses would never EVER allow this to be done to them.

@gatekeeper and @BostonBurns , weigh in.
 
So, what was the point of making her suffer for the additional 42 years?

If an animal is suffering we put it down, but if the suffering is done by a human we have a tendency to do everything in our power to not just not end it but to also prolong it. It doesn't make sense.
 
@Macabre commented:
As a person that has personal experience in these matters, it hurts me profoundly to see someone with a PEG tube and ventilator in place for prolonged periods of time...There is no quality of life. None...95% of most nurses would never EVER allow this to be done to them.

IMO/E, I have to agree, too. When I read 42 yrs. I was automatically appalled (for the patient) and so touched at the same time b/c she obviously had amazingly dedicated nurses/caregivers of the truly "one in a million" variety.

This is something that punches me right in the feels, too, esp. when we're constantly trying to use everything in the arsenal to keep their bodies from breaking down with horrible decubitus (bed sores) all the way to the bone, constant infections like raging, bloody UTI's (urinary tract infections), pneumonias (like this woman), godawful skin infections from body yeast overgrowth to absolutely wretched wound (bed sore) infections that literally eat at/rot/erode their bodies away, and everything else involved in trying to keep people alive for years and years, which brings up the ethical debate of "Coma" vs. "Persistent Vegetative States" (PVS).

Do people "wake up" from comas and/or correctly or incorrectly diagnosed Persistent Vegetative States (PVS) like loved ones always hope they will? Yep, they do, but it's actually pretty rare, and one thing I know from having to talk to families about Organ Donation (like all us nurses do b/c the docs like to shove that little task on US so *they* don't have to deal with it, tyvm *eyebrow*), is that a lot of people don't understand the difference between a coma and a PVS patient (aka a "vegetable" in insensitive vernacular).

I know you agree as all nurses do that this is such an ethical quagmire for a lot of folks (without a Living Will) on so many levels, for so many reasons, that I did a little surfing for anyone who may not understand the difference between these two states of being, what happens to people in these sustained, "no quality of life" states, and I found a quick read site that discusses how different religions feel about withdrawing life/nutritional support that can often help explain why, on a religious level, some people may refuse to withdraw nutritional/other sustained support in addition to personal reasons.

The difference between a "Coma" and a "Persistent Vegetative State" (like Terri Schiavo's case) from Brainline.org:

http://www.brainline.org/landing_pages/categories/coma.html

From the American Hospice Foundation:
What happens to the body of the person in a prolonged coma or a PVS?

How many of us have seen a movie or television show where a person has been in an unresponsive coma for years, then suddenly wakes up one day, is fully alert, fully functional, and walks away with full strength, looking the same as the day he/she fell into the coma (except, perhaps, for the growth of a beard)?

The belief that an irreversible coma or a PVS is a stable non-progressive condition is inaccurate. Although the brain lesion may not be changing or expanding, the changes occurring in the body are relentlessly progressive:

  • Muscles waste away, and limbs may become contracted and immoveable.
  • The person has a pre-disposition to develop recurrent pneumonia, due to immobility and an inability to keep secretions out of the lungs. Lungs may scar and collapse over time.
  • The person has a predisposition to develop recurrent urinary tract infections, especially if a tube or Foley catheter has been inserted into the bladder to drain urine. These infections not uncommonly become generalized, spreading to the bloodstream and causing sepsis, a life threatening infection of the blood.
  • Skin breakdown and ulcers occur commonly, since the person is unable to move and is incontinent, with no ability to control passage of urine or stool. Once formed, these wounds are very difficult to heal on a permanent basis.
The longer the person is in a coma/PVS, the more profound and devastating are the changes suffered by his/her body.

When a person is in a coma or a PVS, does the person suffer if feedings are discontinued, or not started?

A person in profound coma or suffering from a PVS is unable to experience hunger, thirst or pain. Even if a pain stimulus occurs, there can be no recognition of its presence by the person unless the higher regions of the brain, the brain cortex, can receive and interpret the stimulus. In a person in deep coma or a PVS, the cortex does not function. Therefore, this person would not suffer due to lack of artificial tube feedings.
http://americanhospice.org/caregiving/coma-and-persistent-vegetative-state-an-exploration-of-terms/

Religious perspectives on withdrawing nutrition and allowing a person to die:

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/11/21/religious-groups-views-on-end-of-life-issues/
 
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I do find it heart-warming that her fellow nurses took on the task of caring for her for all of these years, even after the family could no longer support her.

It must have been a constant battle to keep bedsores & infections from taking over (as @gatekeeper kindly gave us insight on:kiss:) but those nurses managed to keep her going for 42 years! That's commitment, that's love!
 
*cracking up* You know me, unless I offer up both sides of an issue, my fuggin' brain implodes. :hilarious::hilarious:
 
Sppht. Cool kids. I sit all by myself. Occasionally joined by a dude with a boner and a nerd or two.

*whispers*
That's cuz they all think you gave the football team the clap, and got caught with the principal's dick in your mouth.

giphy.gif
 
As a Indian female in a persistent vegetative state for 42 years, I can only wonder at how many times she's been raped since the coma:shrug:
 
As a Indian female in a persistent vegetative state for 42 years, I can only wonder at how many times she's been raped since the coma:shrug:

OMG, I had not even thought of that. How horrible. My heart goes out to this woman. 42 years is far too long to suffer.

And this is why I have papers already. A living will, dnr, etc. I hope my husband just lets me go.
 

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