Helping or violating free will?

[Jeremy]

I perform a specific procedure at work where I insert a long term version of an IV into patients that need long term access or central access for critical medications. Many times, these patients are intubated which hasn't bothered me until I performed a couple on patients that weren't. One was a chronically ill patient who suffered a traumatic brain injury years ago. He's awake and somewhat aware but nonverbal and just looks around. Sometimes he seems as if he's fighting back but you can't really tell. Yet his family always gives consent to whatever needs to be done to keep him alive.

As I was doing the procedure, I started to feel bad about it while wondering if he really wanted to live like that. It's not his choice obviously since he has no control over anything that happens. This caused me a bit of introspection into whether I'm violating these patients free will. I try to think about the whole all is well thing but on an individual scale, all I can think about is whether they want to live or die. Maybe this was their plan all along? That doesn't bring much solace though. Am I really helping or am I a part of their continued suffering? It's a fickle thing