Limitation of life support in the pediatric intensive care unit

Abstract

The present study has been made through a revision of medical reports during the period of three years at thePediatric Intensive Care Unit of a University Hospital, having analyzed the variables as, hospitalization time,diagnosis of the child’s principle organ failure, presence of chronic disease, the doctor’s decision concerningthe introduction of life support measure, the do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders additionally the relationshipquality towards doctors and relatives. Most of the obtained results revealed that the procedures adopted bydoctors reflect majorly the professional concerns to protect themselves from lawsuits about neglecting help.Although, the clinic cases studied refers to patients carriers of terminal illness, which only by itself, involves anenormous quantity of moral conflicts, at none of these situations were offered to the patient’s relatives thepossibility to participate at the deliberately procedures about the medical decision therefore there were noconsultations with the Ethics Committee from the Hospital.