NPR published an article which may be of interest to you:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/03/when-cpr-for-the-elderly-becomes-morally-gray.htmlThe while article is probably worth reading for those of you who are really into the issue. But a few paragraphs caught my eye --
The person on the other end of the phone was a trained nurse, but her job in the facility was administrative, not nursing:
Having a trained nurse in the building was extremely unusual, she said, and the woman wasn't even acting as a nurse -- she was 'resident services coordinator,' meaning she arranged the social activities and additional care upon request.
Therefore, "emergency protocol would be to call 911 and wait for medical personnel to administer CPR," Bersani said. "But no company has any policy that prohibits her from doing what the 911 operator was asking her to do."
The coordinator is now on voluntary leave while the company figures out what to do.
As for the legal issue:
If something had gone wrong, the federal Cardiac Arrest Survival Act and California's Good Samaritan Law -- which protect individuals assisting a victim during a medical emergency -- would have shielded the nurse from civil damages.
However, the article points out that the company could still be sued, even if the individual couldn't be.
Finally, the victim in question had a stroke, not a cardiac arrest. So the CPR might not have helped.
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