Answer:
Step-by-step explanation:
This is one of the most complex questions that medical profession has to face.
I'm 81. My wife of 40 years passed away last year. We filled out something in Alberta Canada called the Green form. It is in a green folder and it must be in a prominent place where it can be seen easily. Of course there is only 1 entrance to my room and the back of the door is pretty prominent.
Alberta Health insists that this form must be filled out and signed. I'm telling you this so you will understand what I'm going to write next.
My wife, before she succumbed to the immense pain of the kind of Cancer she had, studied the form carefully. It is a legal document and it ties the hands of the medical profession so that what you are describing cannot happen. Because she studied it so carefully, my form says exactly the same thing hers did.
In effect, the form is a directive that tells the medical profession what they may and may not do. They can keep me comfortable while I still breath. They cannot intervene and make me live a tortured life because they have taken an oath to do that sort of thing.
If what they are planning is a standard response to my kind of Cancer, they can do that. If it deviates in anyway and just prolongs me in a vegetable state, they cannot do anything at all to prolong my life. This takes the responsibility away from my family. My daughter had (at 17) to make this sort of decision for her mother. It was a terrible thing to do to a 17 year old. She had to do it for one parent. She will not have to do it for the one remaining parent that she had.
(The woman I was speaking of above was my second wife. I was not consulted on the first wife's death).
There is no process I know of that can force a patient to live beyond the point where they don't wish to. The only exception to that is when children are involved. Then the medical profession can do what the think is necessary to save a life. That does not necessarily mean prolonging it.
If you are going to pursue this topic at any length, I highly recommend that you read Eric. You will be reading about a young man who died in his girl friend's arms who was with him when he died.
It is a magnificent book written by a compassionate (American) mother who operated without the green folder. In the end she had to make the decision to let go. There was no way an intervention would have done any good.