Is It Suicide to Refuse Medical Treatment?

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Is it equivalent to suicide refuse to continue medications or to keep being placed in the hospital? I am not talking about one unable to make desicions. It would seem they are the same if the medication would prevent death and stopping the medication would make death likely. Similiarly finding a refusal to enter or return to a hospital likely, perhaps certainly to bring on death? I appreciate any thoughts on this issue it is close to my familiy.

Sincerely,

Sadowa
 
I think it partly depends on how the particular medical treatment is impacting the sick person. Say the treatment makes them so drugged up that they can’t enjoy the people around them. A person could refuse the treatment, knowing they will live a shorter time but still be able to enjoy their grandchildren, instead of being in a stupor all the time.

However, one could just want to die and try to tell oneself that if they refuse some simple antibiotics for pneumonia, then they’ll get to die scott-free, so to speak. This rationalization is not going to work. It is not scott-free.

Also, I think it is okay for a person to want to die at home, and not in the hopsital. It is an excessively unpleasant place. You can’t sleep, the sheets are bad, you have no privacy, infections are rampant, etc. One has to consider if one is refusing a simple treatment or basic care, or something much more extreme.

Be sure to find out if the person is depressed!!
 
It also depends on WHY you refuse. Are you refusing treratment to unite yourself with Christ’s Passion or for your own selfish gains?
 
Thanks for answering. I actually had to family members in mind. One who had refused a return to the hospital although in retropect it was obvious that a massive staph infection had brought on a stroke and because of this refusal died. There is another who doesn’t have anything overwhelming and recently had a hospital trip to prove it. However, he is depressive, has high blood pressure, and right on the border of diabetes. He increasingly has a problem as one new medicine yields sife effects. Yet elimination of the medications does not improve blood pressure, blood sugar or outlook ( it is a DSM IV diagnosis )> In this second case nothing bad will happen quickly, but any hapiness of eliminating side effects will be balanced against a reall risk of stroke due to diabetes and high blood pressure. Not helped by fluctuations in how bad days are handled withough medicine. I saw how the example of Anne, probably a cancer or heart patient, presentred the overwhelming last choices. Our family has seen this as in a refusal to return to hundreds of more days with a pick line straight to the heart and no progress against flesh eating staph that lasted over twenty years. That was an example of the cross. Now we have someone with a much smaller set of problems. Yet he has an awareness that he is starting to be dictated to by one medicine after another six pills a day at present. Yet where to stop? Which ones to cut back? How much life threatening risk to assume? Thanks.

Sadowa
 
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sadowa:
Now we have someone with a much smaller set of problems. Yet he has an awareness that he is starting to be dictated to by one medicine after another six pills a day at present. Yet where to stop? Which ones to cut back? How much life threatening risk to assume? Thanks.

Sadowa
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Sadowa,

This is a question that requires close up knowledge to offer much assistance to you. You need to talk with the physician (or probably several of them, which becomes a problem with older folks) to know the side effects and possible benefits of each medicine. The doctor can offer guidance. In fact, after some point the doctor will not give more pills, but will rearrange the ones currently being taken. I myself take a number of medications, and it is very hard to manage between different doctors, different side effects, several of them reduce mental capacity, etc. It is very hard. Then, of course, if your mental capacity is reduced, then compliance with taking them on time and on the right days becomes problematic and reduces their efficacy. It is a huge balancing act with several health problems. I don’t think it is a suicide issue, however, in situations like these.

Often, I don’t think doctors take into account how the side effects impact a patient. Say the side effects mean the person gets less exercise, because they get severe headaches from the pills. The lowered exercise, even if it is only for six months of a course of pills, could have drastic consequences. The person may not recover back to the previous levels of exercise, say because they have arthritis and it is very hard to get back to movement, and that could increase cholesterol levels, and pose a significant risk to the arteries/heart.

Remember, most of these medicines do not guarantee the person not to die of heart failure or whatever. They probably reduce the risk, but for that particular person, it may not.

I guess I’m saying that if this is a typical older adult with too many medicines, this is not a mortal sin situation, but a balancing act with some personal preference and lifestyle leeway. I suggest trying to hook up with a support group for people with similar conditions. They could offer stories of how they dealt with the side effect problem.
 
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