Posted on 04/07/2014 7:29:50 PM PDT by Morgana
Texas has a medical futility–what I call Futile Care Theory–law permitting doctors to remove wanted life-support that works from a patient based on their views about quality of life.
Before that is done, patients/families are supposed to receive due process–such as it is–e.g., a hearing before a bioethics Star Chamber committee. Then, if the committee decides the treatment should end, the patient has 10 days to find a new hospital.
terrymaceBut here’s the thing: I believe that once a society determines that doctors can refuse wanted efficacious life-sustaining service–that becomes the meme–and eventually the due process part goes away.
That may be part of what happened in a case out of a hospital near Austin. As recounted by Thaddeus Mason Pope, an estranged wife (of 5 years!) authorized pulling the feeding tube of Terry Mace (on the left in picture at right). His parents won guardianship and a court blocked the dehydrate decision.
But the hospital did it anyway.
From the Austin State Journal story:
Stephen Casey, one of the attorneys for Mace’s parents, said doctors at Seton Medical Center Williamson surprised the family by removing the feeding and hydration tubes for Mace sometime within the past few days. The 43-year-old Killeen man had been hospitalized since March 6, when he went into cardiac arrest and hit his head on a concrete floor.
After receiving a phone call Monday morning from Mace’s father, Casey went to the hospital and saw the tubes had been removed. Mace’s father got a doctor to reconnect the hydration tube Monday afternoon, Casey said. Mace died about 1 a.m. Tuesday. The hospital’s director of communications, Adrienne Lallo, released a statement Tuesday afternoon saying the hospital had cooperated with Mace’s family.
Some cooperation.
Apparently the hospital didn’t adequately explain that “comfort care” actually meant in Mace’s case, ”dehydrate to death:”
Doctors had told Mace’s family over the weekend that they were providing “comfort care” to him, meaning they were keeping him sedated and making sure he wasn’t choking, said Casey. Mace’s parents might have been confused about what kind of treatment their son was receiving, their lawyers said.
This is how trust in our health care system is being steadily destroyed.
The guy was estranged from the wife for five years and was currently going through divorce proceedings.....Divorce seems like a conflict of interest to me.Until it's actually signed and sealed by the court, you're still married and it doesn't matter what's going on. Your spouse has got the control.
I’m so sorry.
You’re right, the spouse does have the control....however, his family went to court and became his guardians (or medical guardians, I guess). The hospital still did what the illegal guardian (the soon to be ex-wife) wanted anyway and took away his hydration and feeding until his parents found out.
The parents had the control; the hospital ignored them.
The parents had the control; the hospital ignored them.Huh. The way I was reading it, the timeline is that the wife came down and ordered the tubes out, the parents found out and filed for guardianship, and then after it was granted they had the tubes put back in but it was too late. Am I reading that wrong?
You are right. I misunderstood the original article. Thanks for clearing that up.
Wrong. The hospital surprised the family be removing his feeding tube again, after the court had ordered them to reconnect it. They did this in blatant violation of the court order, and they misled the family about it.
This is not uncommon. This is the way brain injured patients are treated. Good luck picking twelve random people who would hand down a guilty verdict in such a case. You’d play hell finding twelve random FReepers who could agree that it’s wrong to murder someone with a severe brain injury.
That’s what I thought originally, BykrBayb. I’m not sure. I reread the article and its links again, and GAFreedom may be right.
Either way, it does seem sometimes that hospitals are quick to hurry the demise of brain injured patients. You have to watch them when it comes to the elderly as well.
This is a good reason for people to specify who will be making medical decisions for them if they’re not able to do so.
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