The longest surviving intubated Covid patient has died after being on a ventilator for 850 days.
"After 850 days on the ventilator, Mr. Lewitinn died of a heart attack on July 23 at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, N.J. He was 76. His son Albert confirmed the death."
(free to read-gifted article): Here
This is a cautionary tale of how modern medicine can entrap one into a situation where one is literally left on a machine, unable to die or live.
It's really no way to live. I wonder if the doctors ever told the family that he would never get better. Our medical resources get sapped by such cases.
The doctors did ask the family and they all decided to keep fighting. Wonder what the dead patriarch thought after almost three years on a vent in a hospital?
The sad thing is I can relate as my mother absolutely did not want to die from her cancer and wanted everything done to the point of wanting to go to Mayo on her last admission despite her trusted doc explaining they had nothing more to offer her and her having agreed to a DNR and not rescinding it even as she wanted to do everything else. She was a nurse though and knew how ugly long term artificial life support could get.
This is why it is best to have the end of life plan discussed long before it is needed. Too bad so many docs do not have that time as their clinics demand productivity and (thanks to Sarah Palin and the asinine death panels BS) docs cannot bill medicare for end of life discussions with patients.
Sigh... although younger than this man, I have taken the burden from my son to let me go and not make me fight ... DNR. It was an easy decision for me, and I hope it will make it easier on him . (My blood pressure shot to 175 with this bout of COVID so less then stellar health shapes my view...YVMV)