By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077
Should we see CPR as a form of end of life care?
In today’s issue we have focused on a matter of life and death; CPR. CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation has long been a treatment of debate. Seen as a therapy that won’t benefit most dying people its portrayal as a saviour treatment in TV shows causes great confusion amongst the general public. Our guest columnists present their thoughts.
‘CPR is just manual evacuation of the spirit’.
-Says Guru and soul midwife Nancy Nancy.
Mrs Nancy writes for us in our first guest slot of this special edition of the Times: I like to think of CPR as massage for the unconscious and dead patient. People often describe the rhythm of CPR as trying to be like that of the healthy heart but I think this is an overly medical mistake to think of the rhythm as mimicking that of the heartbeat. Instead, I believe that it is the Earth’s Rhythm that is being replicated. Instead of performing CPR using both hands pressed down on the sternum, consider holding your hands lightly over the chest. This is known as Chi-pulmonary resuscitation, which may also be shortened to Chi-PR. The best Chi-PR is accessorised Chi-PR and for this reason I always recommend placing crystals over the body and I happen to have some very affordable CBD oil for anointing the ears and feet during Chi-PR. I’m very affordable too if you wish for me to stay with your dying person and advise on the moment to start Chi-PR. Please see my website for a full list of prices and anecdotal evidence written by my friends for all of my products.
‘In a world of conflicting realities it is hard to say what is truly real’.
States our next guest columnist: Professor Softly Softly.
I often think that we should take more time before rushing in to actions like CPR. I teach my team that a cool body equals a cool mind. When considering if CPR is needed I suggest walking away, perhaps making a cup of tea and organising a good sit down with the MDT. It’s often helpful to invite a non-medical voice to these MDT’s, say a local business owner or perhaps a young person. I call these MDT’s: cardiac conversations.
As a matter of note we recently conducted a double blind study and found a 100% MDT (p=0.03), success rate when it came to considering all of the factors around post CPR quality of life and allowing natural death, grief and such-like. We really are very good and allowed ourselves some extra carrot cake this week. Of course, not many people survive the whole CPR process, indeed on a few occasions we’ve decided to ‘go for it’ and found the poor dead person has been taken away. It was ok though as they had an LPA and on careful discussion they were content with ‘making an unwise decision’. And anyway they’d cremated the body.
A patient view.
From a patient perspective we talked with 94 year old golden gran, Doris. Doris told us that she was once resuscitated-‘it was an accident as they’d lost me notes and decided that I wasn’t breathing enough. Anyway, I quickly woke up and told them to stop all of this nonsense. When it’s my time I don’t want some young man thrusting away over me, those times are long gone for me and I want my last nap to be nice and quiet, thank you very much’.
Thank you.
The Palliative Times would like to thank our guest columnists and add that we feel positive that the controversies around CPR will be resolved within the next six months and we shall all know instinctively what the right decision is without need for debate or discussion. Although as a matter of probity this reporter has also been sampling some of the gift products left by Nancy Nancy and would like some snacks and a nap now.
Also by this author:
The problem with predicting the future
How to perform a palliative exorcism
It’s not about the antibiotics