Facing Death Movie Review Examples

Nobody wants to die and nobody wants to die badly. No family members want their loved ones to suffer in hospitals. Some people can go to any extent to save their loved ones as they stand the courage to live and face any obstacles to get liberated from death. Emotions run high in the loved ones when they speak to a doctor about the patients health. Earlier the purpose of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) was to go with a illness and respond to the treatment and get better but now a days Americans are going to ICU to die. I think that the ICU’s can be termed as Intensive Coffin Units. In this paper I review about the “Facing Death” film on Frontline that expresses about the tough end-of-life decisions taken by the doctors, families and the patients to continue life with or without the respiratory systems.
Many Americans die in hospitals than any other places. Americans spend billions of dollars on end-of-life care. Nearly 95% of the patients cannot communicate in ICU because of the heavy sedation or no movement of the body parts, and such a situation becomes very difficult for the doctors and the family members to make end-of-life decision. I understand that the doctors are trying almost all possibilities to keep the patient alive; however they also require family support to go ahead with the treatment, and most of the times the family wants the patient to be alive on respiratry systems.
Albert Alberti one of such cases is hoping for a third bone marrow transplant as he believes that bone marrow transplant can cure his long existing disease of leukemia. The transplant itself can be risky and he must be aware of the consequences as well. A bone marrow transplant can cost nearly 250 thousand dollars, and many uncurable diseases can be cured with bone marrow transplant. I agree with the doctors when they suggest that a patient cannot be on ventilators for a prolonged time as it may cause infection to other parts of the body. Doctors surely do find it difficult to convey the correct message to the family members considering the impact of their decisions that would have on the family members.
Physicians can keep giving treatment and some find it frustrating. I find it surprising that some patients refuse treatment as they find it painful. Many patients appoint a health care proxy to make health decisions for them in situations when they cant take decisions about end-of-life care. Stopping treatment by the doctors just means that death is near and no technology can save the patient. Uncertainty is the most difficult part of decision making. In John’s case who had been suffering from blood loss it was a tough decision to make to be on a life support system throughout his life or just bid good-bye to his life by moving out to hospice.
Nearly 100,000 people are on ventilators and cost of caring for these people is in the range of 20 to 25 billions dollars. Even if there are many advances in ICU people fail to respond in the right manner. The option of living is worth it. The film focuses more on decision making skills required by each person involved in caring a patient. Public health requires prolonged life through well structured efforts of the socities and the individuals. As the main intention of public health is to provide good quality of life to people by preventing and treating any health disorders, I feel everyone involved in making end-of-life decisions must actively participate to do their best and practice multidisciplinary teams that work together for the betterment of the community and the nation. Many people will do anything to live, but can we be answer and afford the growing cost of these end-of-life care systems?