Medical Futility in India

Critical care specialists in the United States have challenges providing medically appropriate end-of-life treatments.  Interestingly, very similar issues have been articulated in India.  The Calcutta Telegraph reports (with similar analysis published by the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine):

Critical care specialists have urged the government to legislate on when doctors may legally withhold or withdraw life support to patients in terminal stages of illnesses but, they say, there has been little progress.  “There’s been virtually no debate in India on the issue of withholding or withdrawing life support,” said Raj Kumar Mani, past president of the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine.  “Under the law, we can’t withhold treatment, but nor can we force treatment on an unwilling patient,” said one critical care specialist. . . .

 The Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine . . . members say limiting life support is common in the developed countries.  Studies in the US and Europe have suggested that withholding or withdrawing life support preceded in 9 in 10 deaths of patients in critical care units. A study from Mumbai three years ago had shown a corresponding figure of only two in 10.