Over the years, medical practitioners have been debating about the ethical principles
and guidelines for terminal weaning. The act of discontinuing mechanical ventilation due to
recognition of continued medicaments' uselessness or because of a family or patient request has
raised questions as to whether ethical principles supporting this position are morally justifiable.
According to Efstathiou et al. (2020), practices, experiences, and perceptions of terminal
withdrawal vary across the globe, with landmark court decisions reshaping people's views on a
subject that lacks a concise policy on how pysicians should enact end-of-life care. Despite this
decision greatly relying on whether the treatment is achieving patients and family goals of care,
lack of legal, ethical, and practical guidelines makes this process open to manipulation by
families, intensivists, and even other hospital physicians.
Withdrawal of mechanical ventilation refers to a clinical intervention for removing
ventilatory support when such support does not achieve an acceptable outcome for the patient.
Williams and Brown (2008) state that mechanical ventilation withdrawal is a standard life
support modality agreed upon when a patient's underlying illness deteriorates or cannot be
reversed.
According to Jessica (2020), this modern ICU care technique focuses on achieving a
more family and patient-centered approach to health care. When further prolongation of a life-
sustaining recrement is deemed futile or fails to meet the patient and family's treatment goal,
families can be given a chance to request withdrawal of mechanical ventilation. This intervention
seeks to relieve patient's suffering by providing comfortable end-of-life care. Hung et al. (2018)
note that mechanical ventilation withdrawal acts as a comfort measure to achieve quality end-of-
life care to terminally ill patients and in ventilatory support. While the end of life is usually
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