What do you think of a "Do Not Resuscitate" order in the classroom?

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Good point. Sometimes parents will use schools as respite, when the children should be home. It is justified by the mandate that that all children are required and entitled to receive an education, however, in this case, it wasn’t appropriate.

I do not think we can judge the appropriateness of anything in this case as we do not have the full story.

It is easy to second guess and form judgments but until we live this case and/or are intimately involved we can not know enough to do so.

 

[cknick]

True. This case may be different, and perhaps school brought this child more joy than to be at home. It doesn’t address the disregard for other children though. Obviously, if there was a DNR order, then there was a likelihood of neurological deterioration, affecting vital function again.

 

[cknick]

Well I read the whole article and got this from it.

The DNR order goes everywhere with Katie, including her 2nd-grade classroom at Laremont School in Gages Lake. The school is part of the Special Education District of Lake County…

Beth Jones will be called first, then paramedics, who will be on standby at the school in
case Katie’s mother decides that she wants them to intervene. Meanwhile, Katie will be moved to a nurse’s office, shielding her from other students.

School nurses will be allowed to use suction to ease Katie’s breathing and give her oxygen with a mask. The child can be positioned in a way that makes it easier to breathe… (It also said that one of the teachers picked her up, remember? I am sure that
helped her breathing, just being adjusted to a different postion at the time.)

Apparently some think that every child with special needs should be
somewhere other than where they are. Years ago some experts thought that those with CP should all be in institutions and that they couldn’t learn, grow up or walk or talk .

I think its sad that any child who wants to go to School, as the article pointed out about Katie, should be deprived of going because some people think that her death might be an inconvience to others. Do you think she should have just stayed home and waited to die?

The article shows how they were going to go out of their way to prevent it from happening
in front of the other children, what more do you want? CP effects everyone who has it differently and comes in different levels and stages. The article also stated that two other children had the same orders on their wheelchairs but doesn’t say why. Perhaps they had other life-threatening issues, but still they wanted to be like other children and go to School and learn and be happy.

I think this part is the way to be…

“We’re not just standing by doing nothing,” said Susan Hodgkinson, nursing coordinator for the Special Education District of Lake County. “We’re providing supportive measures. But most importantly, we are there loving her.”

(my bold and underline.)

I was happy to go back and read that they did have a plan to shield the other students. Even the initial part of emergency response can be frightening for kids though.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I was happy to go back and read that they did have a plan to shield the other students. Even the initial part of emergency response can be frightening for kids though.

Yes but you can not really shield children from this. The death part you can and there was a plan in place to deal with that but as for the initial part of the emergency response, there are many things that can initiate that.

This is a teaching moment for the school and the parents of the children.

 

[lovemysix]

I am not familiar enough with this story to render a judgment as to whether I think a DNR was appropriate in this child’s situation. Indeed, these are usually very complicated and difficult decisions to navigate through, and I feel nothing but compassion for her parents.

What I am a little surprised about, though, is the concern everybody has that other children might be exposed to death. While I agree there should be a plan in place to shield the children as much as possible (and it appears that there was) so as not to unnecessarily traumatize them, at the same time, I have no problem with my children being exposed to natural death. It happens. To everybody at some point. I think the fact that we have so removed death from our homes has made it much scarier and more traumatizing for everyone involved. It used to be that the vast majority of people died at home—old people, young people, mothers, fathers. And somehow humanity went on without suffering horrible effects from it. It’s sad, tragic at times…but death is part of the human condition and one that we all must face at some point.

As a parent of many children, I can honestly say I would have no problem with the concept of them attending class with a child who has a DNR order. Now, given how foreign experience death is to us in our current society, I would want to know that this situation existed in my child’s classroom so that I could discuss possible scenarios with my child before such a thing happened.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a nurse. I see death often, and I have strong feelings about the fact that we have taken the whole process and made it unnatural and institutionalized. I see it as part of the continuum of the human experience, and one that all of us should be prepared to deal with at some point. I have no problem talking about death and would not have a problem with my child being present at the death of a loved one, provided they had been prepared in advance to have an idea of what death actually looks like.

Just my .02.