Starting next year, all Danes over 60 get the option to opt out of CPR reanimation. The Danish Minister of Health wants everyone to choose whether they want to be rescued if they suffer a cardiac arrest.
Until now, only people undergoing treatment or suffering from a disease could choose to refuse resuscitation in case of a heart attack. Now, the Ministry of Health will extend this right to all citizens who are able-bodied and over 60, Kristeligt Dagblad writes. “We must respect the individual's own choice, and if a citizen over the age of 60 does not want to be resuscitated after a cardiac arrest, it is my opinion that you must accept that wish”, Health Minister Sophie Løhde writes in a statement. The choice to refuse CPR will be registered digitally so that health workers can see it.
Senior consultant Anna Wilroth sees the new legislation as an improvement of the right to self-determination. She says that she regularly hears from older people that they do not want to end up in a vegetative state.
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Fit
However, not everyone is happy with the new law. The Medical Association and the Heart Association warn against propagating that CPR always leads to a vegetative state. Klaus Peder Klausen, chairman of the Medical Association's ethics committee, says that people must remember that, in many cases, people recover very well after a resuscitation.
Researcher Gunnar Gislason from the Heart Association thinks that the age limit of 60 years is too low. “Many people in their 60s are healthy and fit. The vast majority of people at that age get a good life after cardiac arrest. He points out that three out of four working people return to their jobs”. Also, he worries that the age limit of 60 gives people the idea that the chance of having a good life after a cardiac arrest when older than 60 is zero. “That is completely wrong.”
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Principle
It is not easy to defend the age limit of 60, Leif Vestergaard thinks as well. He is the chairman of the Danish Ethics Council. “It would make more sense if you made a rule that states that refusal of a resuscitation could be registered after a consultation with your own doctor”, he tells Kristeligt Dagblad.
Even though he is in favour of the right to refuse CPR, he strongly believes that the target group is defined too broadly. “It is fine to have a principle that people must decide for themselves. But why not set the limit at 18, as it is when opting out of other types of treatment?”
Hospital chaplain Lotte Mørk emphasises the importance of information and debate around this bill. “People need to know that, in general, they should not be afraid of surviving a cardiac arrest and that the most important thing is that someone starts the resuscitation. Otherwise, you will die.”
