Last night was crazy, I had a patient who was transported to ER with a gunshot wound but conscious at the time, along with a basilar skull fracture and drainage from the nose.
The guy was a Jehovah Witness, I wont get into the specifics on why he was shot but I will say his wife was at the hospital and eventually other family members came too. Again of course he saying he refuses to give informed consent for a blood transfusion, epogen would not help the situation and we were trying to minimize the blood loss.
Me and the admitting physician took the wife in the conference room and explained to her briefly what was needed and tried to tell her to convince her husband to give informed consent but she got hostile and refused.
Now we as a facility can override a non-conscious patient not giving informed consent if we felt it would save their lives BUT the problem is a lot of Jehovah Witness have sued hospitals and won lots of money because of that issue, its a lot of legal tape and its up to the residing physician if he wants to risk his license.
So in the end we tried intubating him when but he loss consciousness and died at 4am this morning.
If he had not refused the transfusion, it was probable he would've lived. I'm all for people standing on their square but I looked at his report, states he was unemployed with no insurance and two young daughters so now the family has to do a go fund me, fish fry or whatever to try to bury him over something that was avoidable.
I know I cant save everyone but damn, this just really bothered me.