Panel weighs ethical issues

“Who in the room has an advance directive?” asked Denise Fowler, chief clinical officer at Whitman Hospital and Medical Center to board members at their July 21 meeting.

Nobody raised their hand.

Fowler said that response illustrated just one reason the hospital formed an ethics panel earlier this year.

Several months after the panel was formed, the group is educating itself on the best way to weigh ethical debates that arise from various medical cases within the hospital.

Staffers have faced a growing number of end-of-life issues which left questions over the past years, said Fowler.

More than 20 hospital staff had their first official panel meeting two weeks ago. A physician, a chaplain and staff from departments all over the hospital are on the new committee, as well as residents of the hospital district.

They will meet once a month to review new cases, hash out hospital policy on different ethical dilemmas and decide where the hospital stands on new state and national medical policies.

For example, the state last year passed I-1000, an initiative which gives patients and doctors the right to proceed with a physician-assisted suicide in cases where the patient is terminally ill. Staffers may examine the new law and decide how this fits with Whitman Hospital policies.

Much of what the panel is focusing on is educating staff, patients and the community on the complications surrounding end-of-life issues.

Board members at the meeting were curious as to the capabilities of the hospital’s end-of-life facilities.

Fowler explained the hospital does not have a ventilator available for life-support. The ventilator is used for emergencies.

“If you are on a machine, brain dead, you are dead. Even if we are supplying support to your organs,” Fowler said.

The hospital does not have organ removal capabilities. However, a team can be called in to perform a removal in the rare instance this occurs, said David Womack, hospital administrator.

Another gray area the panel is seeking to illuminate is the conflicts between patients and their families.

“Conflicts between what a patient wants and what a patient’s family wants- sometimes that can be a really murky area for people to work through,” Womack said.

Another example of what the panel will process is business decisions in relation to the hospital’s health care.

For example, if equipment is needed in two separate departments and there is only enough funding for one piece of equipment, how is the purchase decided upon?

The ethics panel was formed to weigh just such an issue.

Fowler stressed it was important to have patients fill out the advance directive as it serves as a crucial guide in the event of the patient’s imminent death.

“Unless you live and breath health care, a lot of people don’t understand those things,” Fowler said of the complicated items listed on a directive.