Sunday, October 07, 2007

End of life in pediatric intensive care unit in Plovdiv, Bulgaria

"End of life" is an euphemism for passive euthanasia and means termination of life support for a patient in an intensive care unit. In pediatric units, end of life means that a premature baby is let to die because he seems unable ever to survive without life support, or will have too severe disabilities to be considered a valuable person by the society. However, the case in Plovdiv was different. Translating from Netinfo (http://news.netinfo.bg/?tid=40&oid=1106939):
"A blackout occurred after 9 pm on Saturday in the Multiprofile Hospital in the city of Plovdiv and endangered the lives of seven premature babies. The equipment keeping the babies warm and supplying them with oxygen, food and medications depended on electricity. The hospital has its own power generator only for the lighting. The personnel on duty wanted to ask when power supply would be resumed but nobody answered the emergency phone number of the electricity company EVN that was given to them. The blackout lasted for 1 hour 35 minutes. The patient in most critical condition was a newborn girl weighing only 800 grams who was on artificial ventilation. Six hours later, the baby died. The other six babies in the intensive care unit survived by a hair's breadth. The electricity company said that the blackout was caused by a damaged electric cable near the hospital. They also said they have new emergency phone numbers that can be found in Internet."

1 comment:

Pediatric South Florida said...

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. Its been really great to be here. Waiting for more articles.