How often do hospitals take away medical guardianship when they feel the family, patient, wife are not making the right decisions?

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How often do hospitals take away medical guardianship when they feel the family, patient, wife are not making the right decisions?

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This happened to a friends of mine. The wife was banned from the hospital for 3 weeks while they withheld food and drink for 6 days. They declared him incompetent but tried to get him to consent to a feeding port while guardianship was being decided. They wouldn’t even put her calls through. They pushed his daughter to file for guardianship or they would have the court appoint one. I think this happens often.

Care Decisions End of Life Guardianship

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I agree there is something missing here. Maybe it has something to do with the medical issue he is being treated for but the hospital withholding food and drink for 6 days and then pushing for a feeding tube, both contrary to family wishes, sounds like opposite problems to me. I assume they have him on IV fluids at least? They obviously fear the wife is harming her husband somehow and I have to say I wonder if they think he was being poisoned (just wild speculation) but since they are urging the daughter to file for guardianship it tells me they aren't trying to oust the whole family. Obviously the daughter doesn't have POA or shared/secondary POA and I wonder if mom isn't sharing medical info about dad with her or allowing the doctors too and that's why the urging to get guardianship...again just speculating but this sounds like a very aggressive move for a hospital to make, I don't think it happens often, in fact they prefer to stay out of the big medical decision thing and leave it to family in charge, the whole release thing is all about protecting the hospital should the decision end up being wrong or simply with the same negative results any decision would have had. They are there to care for patients and very aware of protecting themselves as well, grieving families sue all the time out of a need to blame someone.

Is your friend and the person you are getting info from the wife or the daughter?

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Often the hospital with have to withhold food when there has been stroke, parkinsons, Lewy's or some other reason that there is a poor swallow reflex, and food taken by mouth is going into the lungs, causing deadly aspiration pnemonia. If the wife was feeding against the hospital directions they would remove her or have a sitter present when she was there, as she could kill him if he can't swallow. This sounds really a complicated case. Hope she will update us as to what the outcome is.

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I was a nurse for more than 40 years. I have never seen the POA for healthcare removed and have never heard of a wife being banned. The wife needs an elder care attorney now. This most certainly would not have been done without heavy involvement of the care team including social workers and family conference. It could only be done if the wife is seen as a danger to the patient's health and life, in my view. Without an advanced health care directive done by the patient prior to illness, saying that in certain circumstances, say advanced age, he or she does NOT want artificial sustenance, it becomes very murky as to what the wishes of that patient would have been were he rational and able to make decisions. (We should all remember this and make our directives NOW). This is sounding like a very bad situation. Hospitals almost never interfere with family decisons for a patient. There is a form of suicide that involves not accepting food or drink, but this often occurs only when doctors have put a patient in hospice care, with little chance of any recovery. If a hospital has removed a family from a patient it suggests that the hospital thinks that the family is actually attempting to cause the death of a patient by starvation and is a danger to the patient. You see the dilemma? In that case the hospital may leave this in the hands of a court-appointed guardian. This certainly must be a complicated case, to have all of this happening. Hoping you will tell us what happens as it goes along, as this forum is here to be informative to families. Wishing you the best.

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I think the wife may have had POA. Maybe she was interfering with the staff doing their jobs. Guardianship is the only way to override POA. Its very expensive and has to be done by the court system.

I have never had problems with my POA being excepted. The Medical one read like a living will. The doctors would have had to go with Moms wishes.

I have a feeling there is more to this. A wife is not usually banned. The daughter can call the Ombudsman if she felt the hospital was in the wrong.

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How often do hospitals take away medical guardianship when they feel the family, patient, wife are not making the right decisions?

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