Do not resuscitate (DNR) orders for Suicide attempts patients

Do not resuscitate (DNR) orders for Suicide attempts patients
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The Ethical Issue
Do not resuscitate orders are becoming increasingly common especially for patients in palliative care and or with terminal illnesses. However, their scope and importance is often unclear. They are intended to instruct care providers to let the individual die without administering CPR and other resuscitation procedures. The people who sign DNR would like to be allowed to die but it can throw the care providers in a conundrum if the cause of death seems to stem from unnatural causes. One of the major unnatural causes of the people who arrive at the emergency room are suicide cases. While suicide is unnatural, doctors are also supposed to respect the autonomy of the patient. Thus, if the patient has a DNR order, care providers must proceed with caution by balancing the respect to autonomy of the patient and their professional requirement of beneficence. Care providers are supposed to do whatever is in their power to lengthen and improve the quality of life of a patient.
If a person attempted suicide which is mainly attributed to poor mental health and or depression, the individual needs help. However, a do not resuscitate order forbids some of the procedures that may be necessary to lengthen the life of the individual inasmuch as he/she wants to end it.
On one hand, the care providers especially the doctors must respect the patient’s autonomy according to the principles of their practice. In this case, patient’s autonomy is to follow do not resuscitate orders. The principle of autonomy rests in the capacity for self-determination and is frequently used to justify suicide, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia CITATION Hum14 \l 1033 (Humble, 2014). An individual should be allowed to freely choose with no coercion what is best for them depending on their value systems and beliefs. They should not be compelled to perform an act that contravenes their beliefs or conflicts what the view as good for them.
On the other hand, doctors are bound by a principle of beneficence. It is derived from the Hippocratic oath and can be summed up by the phrase ‘first do no harm.’ The principle of beneficence is centered on doing good, and not the bad of the patient. Thus, for a doctor to watch their patient die while there is something in their capacity, they can do to lengthen their life is tantamount to doing harm to the pat...