Resuscitation choices

SIR – Camilla Tominey (Comment, June 11) is right to castigate doctors for issuing do-not-resuscitate orders to patients with mental illness or learning difficulties where there were no other significant medical problems.

These decisions are rarely simple or made lightly and in the vast majority of situations doctors do try to discuss them with patients or families.

Less than one in 10 attempts at resuscitation in hospital are successful. Moreover, they provide little dignity, with those surviving often left with broken ribs and/or brain damage. Many die within a month of resuscitation. I would not want to be resuscitated if I was seriously ill and had significant medical conditions.

During the worst of the pandemic, I remember times when it was difficult or impossible to contact relatives of elderly patients who were rapidly deteriorating and unable to understand complex discussions around resuscitation. In those cases, we made do-not-resuscitate orders, as is allowed. But this was not the norm, and I believe that health professionals and hospitals are aware of the need to make these decisions with patients and families’ knowledge when possible.

Dr David Chadwick

Hutton Rudby, North Yorkshire