ADVANCED ETHICAL DECISION MAKING OF HEALTH CARE

The Case Of Helga Wanglie



The Case Of Helga Wanglie

1. Introduction

The purpose of the paper is to explain a case study based on the case of Helga Wanglie. The case study will focuses on the ethical decision making in health care settings. An odd right-to-die case was lately perceived, engaging an 86-year-old woman, Helga Wanglie, who had been in a continual vegetative state for more than one year. (Mueller, 2004) Her family liked her life to be sustained on a respirator, while physicians contended that such remedy was inappropriate.

The right of competent mature individuals to deny health care has been sustained in numerous situations, but positions where persons become incompetent without having left clear directions considering life-sustaining remedy are more complex. The court directed for the family; Mrs. Wanglie past away three days after the court's decision. This conclusion was reliable with other ones that have been come to in right-to-die situations, in that the family was permitted to make the vital decision.

 

2. The case

 The case of Helga Wanglie, an 87-year-old woman whose lungs became irreversibly unable to sustain her life without a respirator, has caused controversy and debate since May 1990 when Wanglie's condition became apparent. Her physicians, recognizing that her condition would not improve, concluded that the respirator was not benefiting her. (Hook, 2005)

In late August 1990, a conflict between Mr. Wanglie's wish to sustain his wife's vegetative state using a respirator and the physician's refusal to continue prescribing the respirator prompted the mediation of Steven Miles, an ethics consultant. Miles attempts to clarify, through his article, some of the "misunderstandings" the press published regarding the case. He states that the medical staff had used every possible means to resolve the disagreement and to avoid court, including counselling and transferring the patient to other providers. In the article, he stresses that legal action was taken by individuals and not by the medical centre per se, and such action was taken to clarify what was required of individual practitioners in a particular dilemma, not to make a general public policy. (Council on Ethical and Judician Affairs, 1999)

3. The Issue

Many difficulties in maintaining a private doctor-patient relationship during the highly publicized trial compounded problems surrounding the case. The hospital stated its three objectives during the trial: to maintain a private, clinical relationship with the family, to maintain confidentiality about the patient's treatment or illness, and to explain fully the hospital's position within those constraints. The trial did not expand the public record of medical facts, and because the family did not release the results of diagnostic testing, some in the media attempted to second-guess the medical conclusions about the irreversibility of her condition. During the trial the judge disallowed testimony about the beneficial or no beneficial effects of Wanglie's respirator, stating that such evidence would not be given until the second part of the trial. During the first part the judge ruled that the hospital had failed to prove ...