This next story has me fuming because it is a story about someone who played by the rules and lost. Here in New York state (as well as many other states!), there are two orders that prevent medical personnel rendering medical aid.
There’s a Nonhospital Order Not to Resuscitate and a Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment. When the proper procedures are followed, all medical aid must cease when it comes to life-saving aid. I have both a DNR and MOLST in place. If you want to know about all that before getting into this story, please read this section of my website that goes into greater detail.
Now comes the story of one Marie Cooper, a woman who made it very clear that she did not want to be resuscitated in the event of an emergency. For many years, Cooper had the proper documentation on file and in her possession. She did everything right but was forced to live. Tubes were stuck down her throat and other measures were taken and yet the doctors arrogantly and intentionally overrode her wishes.
Now, at the age of 81, she has to endure the torture and discomfort of being forced to live when she jumped through the proper hoops.
According to the article, even supposedly trained medical staffers didn’t know what a DNR or a MOLSR is. That’s scary. What these documents do is they command a “natural death,” meaning that the person who has these orders will, or at least should, be left to die without any sort of medical intervention. But apparently, these documents are unknown to some in the medical field.
The article went on to report similar experiences on the part of other people who did the proper work. They too suffered greatly because their orders were maliciously, in my opinion, disregarded.
As for me, I have the proper paperwork. My DNR is on white paper and my MOLST is on yellow. I have a bracelet that I wear, required under state law. I also have a DNR bracelet, which will hopefully serve as a secondary alert before aid is rendered. My paperwork is always in my back pocket.
I also have a copy of the paperwork on my fridge, which appears to be the way paramedics in this area are trained to look. In other words, I too have gone through the proper procedures, and hopefully, when the day comes, I will just be left to go without aid.
Last month, I reached out to Mohawk Ambulance Services, the only major ambulance 
company in the Albany area. The person to whom I spoke confirmed that the bracelet would be honored and that a necklace, while not required under state law, would at least be one more way to alert the EMT’s.
I also spoke with the Town of Colonie’s ambulance service in that suburb of Albany, and they too are aware of their obligation.
Now, it seems, I should fear being ignored when I get to the hospital. That’s why I have the documents on me so that the paramedics can hand them off to the emergency department staff. I am trying to work on getting my documents on file with local hospitals. Thankfully, I only need to do that twice since one company owns pretty much all of the hospitals in the area and their records are centralized.
Hopefully, everything will work the way that it’s supposed to. This all might seem suicidal, but I do have several major medical complications that would make my quality of life extremely poor if I were to be revived.
So how to deal with people who disregard DNR and MOLST orders when the rules are followed (I made very sure to take away any excuse someone might have to disregard my documents.)? I would favor seeing civil action against the company and hospital and I would support any effort to save a DNR/MOLT patient a crime, like, oh, say, felonious assault.
The good news is that ambulance personnel seem to be well-trained when it comes this issue, at least in this area. Here’s hoping the hospital staff, assuming that I’m still alive, will know what to do. I don’t want to end up like the people in that article.