Parents Have No Rights In Hospitals Over Life and Death Issues

January 8, 2014 — Leave a comment

Parents have no rights in hospitals over life and death issues with their children

The kids and Mike and I 1998I am a strong advocate for families having a say in life and death decisions for their loved one’s. Not the government, state or courts.

I’ve heard it all the last month with all the trolls invading the Jahi McMath Facebook group. One comment that keeps coming up is how much it cost to keep her on life-support, why should the hospital pay? Who is paying? If they had to pay, they would let her die.

Hummm…I don’t think so.

I believe they were advocating and did advocate to keep their daughter on life support and give her an opportunity to wake up. Someone sent me the hospital records of the test’s performed on her. If you look at the results, I would have to agree it appears hopeless. Perhaps it is. I don’t know.

Regardless, I support her mother and her families right to make that decision regardless of cost.

We had insurance when my son was in his car accident in Nashville. Our insurance paid it all. But, we still were not allowed to keep him on life support except for one more day. I wish I knew then what I know now, and that is one reason I have utmost respect for Jahi’s family.

I downloaded the court records between Jahi’s mom’s attorney,Christopher Dolan and Children’s Hospital Oakland.

It is stated that this body with its regular pulse, its near-normal warmth and coloration, its continuous output of sweat and urine, is not a body at all but a carefully and expensively maintained corpse.

The Elijah Smith Story

A Ohio man declared brain dead and on life support after a hit-skip crash had his organs harvested under court order, following objections from his family.

After officials at Grant Medical Center notified Lifeline of Ohio of Smith’s wishes, Pamela and Rodney Smith said they didn’t want their son’s organs harvested. On Sunday, Pamela Smith, of the East Side, wrote to Grant and to Lifeline to say that the family did not consent to harvesting his organs because Elijah did not fully understand the choice he had made.

No one understands what they are signing up to be an organ donor.

“We do not want our son to die like this,” she wrote. “We do not want our son to be an organ donor.”

Grant officials deferred to the family and told Lifeline that a court order would be needed to proceed with the organ harvest. Lifeline filed a complaint in Franklin County Probate Court seeking the right to proceed.

“Under the circumstances, no one — not even his family — can undo what he did,” Lifeline’s attorney wrote in a motion.

Ohio law bars anyone other than the donor from amending or revoking an organ donation, Dorrie Dils, Lifeline’s chief clinical executive stated.

This means parents.

The Haleigh Poultre story. 

Haleigh Poutre is a little girl from Massachusetts who almost did not live to her 12th birthday. On September 11, 2005, after years of abuse, Haleigh was beaten nearly to death by her aunt and stepfather. She lay in a vegetative state, unable to breathe on her own, tethered to both a respirator and feeding tube. She immediately came under the control of the state, with a court appointed guardian.

Within eight days of her near fatal beating, the Department of Social Services (DSS), who had virtually ignored more than a dozen reports of physical abuse and neglect over the previous few years, applied to the courts to have her life-support removed with the agreement of Haleigh’s court-appointed lawyer.The request to remove the respirator was approved by Juvenile Court Judge James G. Collins on October 5.

To discuss ending the lives of people because we see no value in their continued existence is reprehensible. When the lawyer for Haleigh’s stepfather requested that the court obtain the medical opinion of a neutral physician, the judge said, “When you have consistent medical opinions, why do you have to find a doctor who might challenge that?”

You have to look for a doctor who might challenge that because a little girl’s life is on the line. When one values something, one is pained by even the possibility of its loss. America has a long history of recognizing that a life need not be pleasant to be deemed valuable. Excerpts from Aish.com Jewish Content web-site.

Yet she came out of what the courts and doctors said was a “hopeless” situation and is alive today.

Dr. David Evans a retired physician, in response to an article about the topic of brain death wrote this, “Your explicit recognition that brain death is a recent invention for transplant purposes is most welcome and should do much to expose the fallacies and fudging associated with this supposed new form of death, which have been hidden from public and professional view for far too long” (Evans, 2002, para.1).

Doctors that support the establishment of brain death are forced to admit that the evidence for brain death is small and practically non-existent. Dr. Evans points out that the public is not aware of how little the scientific method was used to come to the conclusion of brain death. The public is not aware that a ground breaking phenomenal decision was made by a handful of men in a committee. Why is there a movement to ignore the legitimate concerns about validity of brain death? The answer lies with the result of brain death. US National Library of Medicine. 2011. Brain death: Brain death is a recent invention. NLM  Publication number 1538-42. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1124114/

Marlese Munoz

Right now a pregnant mother,Marlese Munoz lies in a hospital in Texas, on life support. Why? To keep her unborn child alive and so it can be delivered. Her husband wants her disconnected, but there is a Texas law that says, “A person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment … from a pregnant patient.”

So she lives on in the hopes she will deliver a healthy baby.

My question is why is it OK to keep one mother alive, against her husband’s wishes, as she was only 14 weeks pregnant when she was pronounced brain dead and yet pronounce Jahi brain dead and the hospital want to cease life support. Her husband says she is neurologically dead and wants her removed.

Again, the parents had no choice.

We live in a crazy world. Is there any wonder that the average person is confused about brain death?

How can one person be on life support and her body not deteriorate like they claim Jahi’s is?

Talk to your family, make sure you have a life directive or someone in your will who will make those life decisions for you and do their best to fight the hospital to carry out their wishes.  At least you have documented your wishes.

But, be aware that almost all hospitals have Medical Futility laws so they do not have to continue to treat the patient even if they have a life directive. Contact the hospital in your location and see if what it says

.Michigan has a state law.

May 22, 2013, to require a hospital, health facility or agency that maintains a written policy that encourages or allows a health care professional to withhold or discontinue treatment on the grounds of “medical futility” to provide a copy of the policy to the patient or resident upon request.

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