[Sacajaweau]

This really bothers me. She will not get better. This isn't a coma...all activity has stopped. No one can do a thing to this doc...all he has to do is watch over a dead body, pat the parents on the back every day and write a little report. In a couple of weeks....he will get 15 more minutes.

Very sad...

[House Atreides]

Dr. Paul A. Byrne should probably have his medical license revoked or at least suspended. When the hospital turns over the body, they probably should have the December 12 death certificate appended.

[exDemMom]

Does this Dr. Byrne have a book to sell, or something?

Isn’t it a bit odd that a physician who has not even examined the patient claim that she is not dead when the physicians who did examine her have made that determination?

One article linked on another thread said that in an experiment back in the 1960s (IIRC), a corpse was kept on artificial support for 26 days before cardiac arrest finally occurred. I find myself morbidly wondering how long before the heart in this corpse gives out. It has been 24 days since she died.

I feel for the family, I really do. But this drawn out and continued maintenance of cardiac and minimal organ function in a corpse is beyond macabre. Is it just denial going on here, or is there a more serious psychological issue with the family?

[Sacajaweau]

Cost to transport - $32,000.00

Imagine what the care costs.

[umgud]

Who will pay for this? The insurance company? If so, how long? Does the family have this kind of money?

[Sacajaweau]

This Doctor Byrne has written a book on this death. It's almost like he doesn't believe there is such a thing as death.

Is he just plugging his book? Sounds it...He uses the title of his book in the court papers...hmmm

[Lizavetta]

following a tonsillectomy gone awry

I don't think this is true. It was more than that, a throat enlargement or something, to facilitate breathing because she had sleep apnea due to obesity. Way more than a simple tonsil removal.

[granite]

Does anyone know if she is being hydrated?

[JPG]

Sadly, all they're doing is keeping a shell warm.

There is no one home.

[rainee]

Confused about this story - family prepping for lawsuit? can’t imagine losing a child but they have to know she’s not coming back right? & who’s paying for all this?

[sockmonkey]

Jahi has been released to her family and moved out of Oakland Children’s Hospital.

http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_24850098/jahi-mcmath-attorney-tells-tv-station-child-will

http://www.latimes.com/la-me-oakland-girl-20140105,0,5779486.story#axzz2pbDCalEb

[pterional]

This medical/ legal case sets precedence for the biggest disaster to occur to the practice of medicine in my life time. A judge forcing a hospital to keep the dead on a ventilators will exhaust ICU resources quickly. At a minimum it would cost 10 thousand dollars a day in the ICU.

The decision to keep this dead child on a ventilator is based strictly on race and it wouldn't even have been a news story if the child was Asian, white or Hispanic.

The judge has also created a malpractice crisis. The plaintiff attorney now will ask for lifetime medical support for a corpse. Figuring about 2000 dollars / day for 50 years would come to 36. 5 million not adjusted for inflation. They will get that amount if it goes to trial in Alameda county. I guess malpractice premiums just went up in California for pediactric surgeons.

[PghBaldy]

I wonder how this will play out politically? Which party will jump on the bandwagon first?