Posted on 03/21/2005 7:43:31 PM PST by Babu
DISABLED WOMAN WOULD CRY 'HELP ME' CAREGIVERS CLAIM
By Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com Congressional Bureau Chief
September 03, 2003
(Editor's note [Rush Limbaugh site]: This report contains quoted language and descriptions of alleged multiple instances of denied medical care that some readers may find offensive.)
(CNSNews.com) - A federal judge Tuesday refused to stop a Florida court from ordering the removal of a disabled woman's feeding tube at the request of her husband. However, the judge gave the woman's parents ten days to amend their lawsuit against the husband, the hospital caring for the woman and the hospice where she is being kept in anticipation of her death by starvation or dehydration. The lawsuit also named the husband's attorney as a "non-party co-conspirator" to the alleged violations.
Robert and Mary Schindler filed an emergency complaint Saturday with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa in an effort to block their daughter's husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, from moving forward with plans to remove his wife's feeding tube. Thirty-nine year old Terri Schindler Schiavo suffered a brain injury in 1990 under questionable circumstances. That injury, complicated by a lack of therapy for more than a decade, has required that she be given nutrition and hydration through a gastrostomy or "feeding tube."
Since receiving a $1.2 million medical malpractice award on behalf of his wife, Schiavo has provided only subsistence care for her and, based on affidavits included with the Schindlers' suit, allegedly forbidden medical professionals from providing his wife with any therapy or rehabilitation. He is currently allowing her to receive limited medical treatment for a severe infection under a court order.
Former caregivers file affidavits supporting allegations
Three medical professionals who had cared for Terri in the past filed affidavits accompanying the lawsuit, disputing Michael Schiavo's claims that his wife was in a "Persistent Vegetative State," which is the requirement under Florida law for a feeding tube to be removed. The medical experts also chronicled a long history of alleged denial of care and therapy by Schiavo.
Carolyn Johnson, a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), cared for Terri in a nursing home in the early 1990s. She described her shock at being ordered not to provide the same care for Terri as a patient in the same room with a similar brain injury was receiving.
"I learned, as part of my training, that there was a family dispute and that the husband, as guardian, wanted no rehabilitation for Terri," Johnson explained. "Once, I wanted to put a cloth in Terri's hand to keep her hand from closing in on itself, but I was not permitted to do this, as Michael Schiavo considered that to be a form of rehabilitation."
Another CNA, Heidi Law, cared for Terri at a convalescent center in the mid and late 1990s. Law described similar orders she received not to encourage Mrs. Schiavo's recovery.
"I know that Terri did not receive routine physical therapy or any other kind of therapy. I was personally aware of orders for rehabilitation that were not being carried out," Law alleged in her affidavit. "Even though they were ordered, Michael [Schiavo] would stop them. Michael [Schiavo] ordered that Terri receive no rehabilitation or range of motion therapy."
Law also alleged that her attempts to document Terri's potential for improvement were thwarted.
"I made extensive notes and listed all of Terri's behaviors, but there was never any apparent follow-up consistent with her responsiveness," Law said. "There were trash cans at the nurses stations that we were supposed to empty each shift, and I often saw the notes in them."
Law directly disputes Michael Schiavo's claim that Terri is in a Persistent Vegetative State, as well. In her affidavit, she detailed how she routinely provided Terri with a wet washcloth filled with ice chips to keep her mouth moistened and, on at least three occasions, fed Terri flavored gelatin.
"I personally saw her swallow the ice water and never saw her gag. [Another CAN] and I frequently put orange juice or apple juice in her washcloth to give her something nice to taste, which made her happy," Law recalled. "On three or four occasions I personally fed Terri small mouthfuls of Jell-O, which she was able to swallow and enjoyed immensely."
Nurse recalls Schiavo asking, 'When is that bitch gonna die?'
Carla Sauer Iyer was a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) at the same convalescent center in the mid 1990s, and also cared for Terri. She described Mr. Schiavo as being "focused on Terri's death.
"Michael [Schiavo] would say, 'When is she going to die? Has she died yet?' and 'When is that bitch going to die?'" Iyer charged. "Other statements which I recall him making include, 'Can't anything be done to accelerate her death, won't she ever die?' When she wouldn't die, Michael [Schiavo] would be furious."
Conversely, Iyer said that when she would have to call Schiavo to inform him of a downturn in Terri's condition, Schiavo would be elated.
"Michael would be visibly excited, thrilled even, hoping that she would die," Iyer recalled. "He would blurt out, 'I'm going to be rich,' and would talk about all the things he would buy when Terri died, which included a new car, a new boat and going to Europe, among other things."
Iyer also described incidents of Terri Schiavo talking, moving voluntarily and responding to external stimuli, descriptions that Iyer said were removed from Mrs. Schiavo's medical records. Both Law and Iyer reported Terri verbally communicating, also contradicting Michael Schiavo's claim that his wife was in a Persistent Vegetative State.
"During the time I cared for Terri, she formed words. I have heard her say 'mommy' from time to time, and 'momma,'" Law recalled. "She also said 'help me' a number of times."
Iyer described Terri as "alert and oriented," and said Michael Schiavo "systematically distorted" Terri's medical condition.
"Terri spoke on a regular basis while in my presence, saying such things as 'mommy' and 'help me,'" Iyer recalled. "'Help me' was, in fact, one of her most frequent utterances. I heard her say it hundreds of times."
Attorney named as 'non-party co-conspirator' to civil rights violations
The lawsuit filed by Terri's parents accuses Schiavo, both personally and in his official capacity as Terri's legal guardian, of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act for refusing to provide appropriate medical care and rehabilitation therapy, which are required by the law and for seeking to deprive her of nutrition and hydration, which is forbidden by the law.
George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney and a noted author and advocate in Florida's so-called "right to die" movement, is also named as a "non-party co-conspirator" in the lawsuit. The Schindlers allege that Schiavo, with Felos' help, sought to deprive Terri of her due process rights under the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The suit charges that Terri was denied a guardian ad litem during most of the legal proceedings in which her husband sought to end her life and, the remainder of the time, suffered from "ineffective assistance of counsel, due process violations, and blatant conflict of interest with Terri's guardian, defendant Michael Schiavo," who is responsible for seeing that her legal interests are represented.
The only guardian ad litem and the only attorney to represent Terri prior to her parents' intervention in the case were removed when the attorney suggested that Michael Schiavo had a conflict of interest that prohibited him from serving as Terri's guardian.
The complaint also alleges that Schiavo and Felos conspired to deprive Terri of access to her priest in violation of the First Amendment and that the use of a 1999 Florida law in her case represented a Fifth Amendment due process violation of the constitutional prohibition on ex post facto legislation since Mrs. Schiavo had suffered her injury in 1990.
All of the cumulative rights violations are alleged under 42 USC 1983, which provides that, "Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
The hospice where Terri Schiavo is being kept and the hospital where her infection was supposed to have been treated are also accused of violating the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. That law requires that "handicapped" receive comparable medical care to that given able-bodied patients with similar conditions or injuries. Both facilities are subject to the Rehabilitation Act because they receive federal Medicare funding. The hospital is also charged with violating provisions of the Social Security law in 42 USC 1395dd, which requires the examination and appropriate treatment of emergency medical conditions and forbids the discharge of patients before their conditions are stabilized. The Schindlers believe their daughter was prematurely discharged from the hospital on more than one occasion in an attempt to hasten her death.
Felos accused the Schindlers of trying to subvert the Florida justice system.
"The purpose of this lawsuit is to invalidate the lower court's decision," Felos told the Tampa Tribune Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Richard Lazzara gave the Schindlers ten days to file an amended version of their lawsuit and offered Felos an additional ten days to respond. He would not, however, block a hearing scheduled for Sept. 11, during which Pinellas-Pasco Florida Circuit Judge George Greer is expected to set a date for Terri Schiavo's feeding tube to be removed.
Attorneys for both sides told reporters after the emergency hearing Tuesday that they do not expect Greer to set that date any earlier than the 20-day period set by the federal court for the Schindlers' amended complaint and Felos' response.
WHy not make it WHINO....Wicked husband in name only.
Let's see there is a trust fund in that started in excess of 2 Million dollars. ALL of this was for Terri's 'care and REHABILITATION' - Michael's words. But he hasn't spent it for that. Some, less than 10% has gone to the hospice bills. Since he said he needed that money, he sued to get it, to REHABILITATE her, one might think he meant what he said. One might think that he was telling the truth, but he was not. He lied. Now when Bill Clinton lies Dan Rather still says Bill Clinton is an honest man tho' he lies. Now when Michael lies do we pretend that he too is an honest man. I think he has a little bit of a credibility problem.
Now, no one mention the fact that Michael refuses to say whether Terri has a life insurance policy.
Maybe he is afraid she will get the therapy she needs & be able to communicate what really caused her to be in this condition. Maybe the fear of going to prison for attempted murder? Why has he stipulated that her body be cremated as soon as she dies?
Why did they have to remove the feeding tube in order for her to be "allowed to die"? Why didn't they just stop feeding her? What the hell is going on down there in Florida? Why are so many people willing to err on the side of death???????
Jesus said how you treat the least of us is how you treat him also. God help America!
The nurse's testimony might be heresay. But so is Michael Schiavo's testimony that Terri would rather die than be kept alive by artificial means. Since when is a feeding tube or help with eating considered artificial means?
The fact that Michael Schiavo withheld therapy from Terri speaks louder than anything. And this is WELL-DOCUMENTED.
Add to it, the fact that most of her legal malpractice settlement, the settlement that should have paid for her therapy, was spent on his legal expenses is most telling.
Follow the money.
I saw him with his attorney tonight on Larry King and neither Larry King nor the callers nailed him on the facts.
Michael Schiavo should do the right thing and sign her guardianship over to her parents, who love her and will do the right thing by her.
Good Lord, there have been neurologists and nurses who say she can swallow. She swallows her own saliva constantly and has swallowed jello and pudding and juices. Poor woman has been denied any type of meaningful therapy and stimulation based on her "husband's" orders.
The brain needs stimulation to form new connections. She has been denied.
Even if she doesn't get better, she's like a person born with cerebral palsy or severe mental retardation.
Perhaps he was "under the inluence" of something.
That means if Terri stays alive much longer Micheal and his live in will be reduced to paupers.
Happens every day.
Well yes indeed, and isn't he just a WHINER DELUXE, constantly complaining about Congress Critters gettin' in the way of his husbandly right to whack his WINO (wife in name only) ...
Hypothetical: What happens, God forbid, if his Common Law Wifey were suddenly hurt & became comatose, does HINO/WHINO/WHINER also get to decide whether or not to pull the plug and whack her too ??? Me thinks this wacko is getting way too much power for the number of moral brain cells he possesses.
Figures. One of them talks out of turn and gets the axe. Nurses' services are perpetually under-appreciated. They are conveniently blamed and fired when families, and doctors get a bug up their @#$.
The stress on the nursing staff as a result of all the media, lawyers, etc. involved has got to be pretty bad.
My wife has been a nurse for 25 years, many of those at nursing homes. We've been talking lately about what it must be like for the nursing staff in the facility that Terri is in - must be hell.
Still not enough evidence for Greer.
bump
Oh wow!!!
Will a liberal judge care about the justice, or in this case the injustice, being done to an innocent woman?
CLEARWATER, Fl.,February,10th /Christian Wire Service/ -- 'On May 6th, 1990, two months after the mysterious incident that left Terri Schindler Schiavo severely mentally disabled, Dr. Hamilton, an Orthopedic Surgeon, examined her. A year later Terri was demonstrating painful reactions to physical therapy treatment, so on March 5, 1991, the Mediplex therapist director ordered a bone scan.
This bone scan revealed a healed broken right femur bone and healed bone fractures in Terri Schindler Schiavo’s ribs, pelvis, spine and ankle.
Dr. W. Campbell Walker concluded that Terri has a history of trauma and presumed that the other multiple areas of abnormal activity also relate to previous trauma.'
Nope, he's just a WHFH, Wicked Husband From Hell.
To receive a millionish dollar settlement for your wife's rehabilitation, only to stop any rehabilitation once you receive said settlement puts you firmly in the POS category, undeniably.
This guy needs to be investigated and most likely prosecuted. Every nursing home he ever drug Terri to needs to be seriously looked at. I really believe she has been women who has not only been abused by her husband but by nursing homes and the court.
Judge Greer is not only incomptent, he is dangerous to civil society. Do you know if there are any impeachment efforts for him?
Perhaps he is the beneficiary on Terri's policy. Perhaps he knew he would get some money in connection with his relationship with his fiancee, Jodi Centonze.
Michael knows his way around insurance, for sure. Terri was a clerk at Prudential, so perhaps she got life insurance as a "benefit." She was young then, so the policy might have been a very good one.
Also Michael is a Director of the Jerger and Centonze Insurnace [sic] Agency, which is run out of his fiancee's house. (Her name is Jodi Centonze). One of the other directors, Richard Jerger, is the son of a very influential and very rich local family, which made a lot of money insuring mobile homes, among other things. The Jerger family's insurance company was bought out by Philadelphia Consolidated in 1999. (a cash and stock deal valued at over $40 million)
My only concern is that there are so very many uncorroborated stories out there on both sides. Shep said all 5 doctors were in agreement, O'Reilly says it costs $80,000 a month for hospice care and a feeding tube. On the other side there is the wedding ring story. I suspect none of this is true
Or the DU trolls evidently. Check out their comments on the impeach judge greer petition. They're in good company with the other librull members of the Reich in Congress.
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