Ethical Issues Involving Withdrawal Or Withholding Treatments In The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) - Essay Example

In terms of finance, withdrawal or withholding treatments in the intensive care unit should defend on the capacity of the relatives of the patient to pay for the costs of health care services. However, financial constraints do not make withdrawing or withholding treatment ethical. Withholding treatment is grounded on medical, ethical, social, and religious values of the patient and the relatives of the terminally ill patient. Different patients have different opinions on the issue. However, rich patients prefer to continue the treatment because they can afford to pay the health care bills.

On the other hand, most poor and indigent patients and relatives of poor patients prefer to cut off the life support and other health-prolonging medical equipments and medicines to the patients. Ian Thompson (2006) emphasized applying the utilitarianism ethics concept, the nurse and medical doctor can emphasize that the ethics should focus on the principle “the end justifies the means”. Under this theory, it would be ethically preferable to remove the life support system if the continued use of the life support system would only prolong the suffering of the terminally ill patient.

Under the utilitarian ethics theory, the killing of the patient would be preferable because the end result would be the same: the patient cannot escape impending death. On the other hand, Ian Thompson (2006) also explained deontology ethics states that a rule should be implement in all situations. Under the deontology ethics concept, there are no exceptions to the rule. The rule of avoiding the abandonment or killing of the patient should be to upheld in all situations. Thus, the nurse and the medical doctor should not accept the request of the relatives to pull the plug because they can no longer afford to pay for the services of the medical doctor, nurse, and other healthcare costs.

In addition, the medical doctor cannot advise the relatives that it is better to shorten the suffering of the patient by removing the life support. Further, most medical doctors and nurses implement utilitarianism ethics in their practice. The nurses and medical doctors accept the patients’ family’s request to halt the life support system due to lack of funds to paying the increasing hospital bills of the terminally ill patient. The reason is economics. The healthcare center cannot afford to continue the treatment without payment.

Likewise, the patient and the relatives do not have funds to pay for the continued treatment of the patient. In the research conducted, physicians and families of patients on life support system agreed on the decision on when to limit the life support system of their terminally ill relatives (Tschudin, 2003). A research was conducted on 3,498 consecutive patients admitted in six intensive care units. 6.6 percent of the total population had their therapy withheld or withdrawn. Consequently, 221 died in the ICU.

The proposal to withhold treatment was advised by the physicians on 210 of the 226 patients. The family members proposed the withholding of treatment in the remaining 16 patients (Esteban et. al., 2001). In another research conducted, physicians in Israel withheld and or had withdrawn the patients’ life support system. This is unethical. The study focused on the intensive care unit of a university hospital in Israel. The findings of the research indicated the life support system in 52 of the 385 patients had cardiopulmonary resuscitation.