Summary of scenario

Mr. Martinez was a seventy-five-year-old chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patient. He was in the hospital because of an upper respiratory tract infection. He and his wife had requested that CPR not be performed should he require it. A DNR order was written in the charts. In his room on the third floor, he was being maintained with antibiotics, fluids, and oxygen and seemed to be doing better. However, Mr. Martinezâ??s oxygen was inadvertently turned up, and this caused him to go into respiratory failure. When found by the therapist, he was in terrible distress and lay gasping in his bed.

Question

Should Mr. Martinez be transferred to intensive care, where his respiratory failure can be treated by a ventilator and his oxygen level can be monitored? For your response to the Mr. Martinez scenario, think about the contextual features, quality of life, patient preferences and medical indications. Then, provide an ethical rationale.