CLARIFICATION is needed from the Medical Council on the issue of withdrawing intravenous nutrition following the Supreme Court decision in the recent "right to die" case, a conference was told at the weekend.
Dr Dermot Phelan, a consultant in the intensive care unit of the Mater Hospital, said there was a discrepancy between the Medical Council's guidelines and the court which needs to be resolved.
Speaking at a conference organised by the Intensive Care Society of Ireland, Dr Phelan said the guidelines were at odds wit worldwide medical opinion when they said that nutrition by any established means is a fundamental care and not a medical intervention.
The withdrawal of futile medical interventions in intensive care is an everyday ethical issue hospitals, he told the conference.
"There is no obligation on doctors to provide therapy in which they do not believe but there is need for consensus decisions in intensive care when the withdrawal of interventions is contemplated.
"Communications with relatives regarding the medical indications for various interventions should be truthful, sympathetic and carry authority," he said.
The conference also heard that court cases about medical intervention should be avoided at all costs.
Dr Denis Cusack, director of the Division of Legal Medicine at UCD, said court cases where there is conflict of opinion between doctors and families should be avoided as they place the decision on judges who are not specialists in the medical area. Patients' families also suffered trauma in court cases.