Posted on 03/06/2011 9:52:59 AM PST by wagglebee
Moe Maraachli says he is praying for a miracle, but not only for his dying son.
He said, after a small rally in a London hotel with about two dozen people, he wants the stone removed from Baby Joseph’s doctor’s chest and “put a heart for him.”
“Maybe he be human like us.”
Maraachli, 37, wants his son’s doctor to put in a tracheotomy and send his baby home to Windsor to die. The grieving dad hasn’t changed his sad tune since his son’s condition has worsened since he was admitted to hospital.
But more people keep joining in the chorus.
There were motional and strong words in the latest chapter in the case of the baby with the irreversible neurological disease who has been in the London Health Sciences pediatric critical care unit since October.
On Saturday, in the rain, there was a vigil outside the hospital with people attending from across North America, and particularly members of the U.S.-based Christian Defense Coalition and Terri Schaivo Life and Hope Network — named after the Florida woman who was at the centre of a high profile U.S. battle over the removal of her feeding tube. The groups entered the campaign to support the family’s desire to get Joseph home within days of the court decision.
Later in the afternoon, the group rallied at the Lamplighter Inn and Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition vowed they will continue in their search to find another hospital willing to take Baby Joseph on, after disappointment earlier this week when a Detroit hospital decided not to have Joseph transferred there.
They plan to be back on the corner of Wellington and Commissioners roads again Sunday and encouraged the vigils to continue each weekend.
“I’m sure if we ask God for a miracle, miracles (will) happen,” Maraachli told the group. In the past weeks since a Superior Court ruling not to allow an appeal of a decision by the Consent and Capacity board, the baby with the terminal diagnosis has become a lightning rod for public opinion about life decisions.
Baby Joseph is on a breathing machine and is fed through a tube. Doctors say his neurological condition has deteriorated so much he is in a “persistent vegetative state” and is blind and deaf, with no brain stem function.
The family wants Joseph to have a tracheotomy— an incision in the child’s wind pipe — so they can take the boy home and care for him by ventilating and removing secretions, like they did when their daughter Zina suffered the same condition and died eight years ago.
Doctors, including a world-renowned expert from the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, say the procedure isn’t an option. It’s too risky, causes a number of complications including pneumonia and wouldn’t improve Joseph’s well-being or his quality
of life.
The doctors want to remove the breathing tube in hospital and provide palliative care until the child’s death.
They have said consistently that if he did breathe on his own after the removal of the tube, he could go home.
When the doctor presented his case to the health ministry-appointed board, it was noted that there had been “many attempts” to have the baby breathe spontaneously on the ventilator, but within minutes, the ventilator reverts to a backup rate” because there hasn’t been any breathing.
At the rally, a basket was passed around the room, raising $4,000 for the family to help with their struggle. They also had t-shirts and CDs from a local performer on sale with all the money going to the family.
All of the support has been moving, Maraachli, 37, said.
The father came to Canada from Lebanon 11 years ago. “You are all my family,” he told the two dozen people at the hotel rally.
Maraachli said after the speeches that he doesn’t trust the doctors anymore and believes they are misleading other hospitals who might take Joseph on. He said they won’t let him have Joseph’s medical records and can’t understand why there is extra security in place.
“I think they mislead too much . No comment for the reason. I don’t know why,” he said.
“Joseph, he doing well. He’s not (getting) worse. He’s good,” he said. .
“I give him his bath. He’s stretching. He knows me when I come talk to him. His head is moving to me.”
The father said he believes his son can breathe on his own and “just has trouble with secretions.”
“They put him on machine They said the machine keep him alive. They’re wrong. They play God on earth,” he said.
He said his hope remains that they can take him home and “when the brain tell him to stop breathing, no more breathing, he die by God’s hand. That’s all I ask.”
He said his hope remains that they can take him home and “when the brain tell him to stop breathing, no more breathing, he die by God’s hand. That’s all I ask.”
This case demonstrates the absolute danger of socialized medicine.
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Prayers for God’s blessings on all.
I can see a miracle from this. Very hard to understand.
Praying for a miracle from God and that God would get the glory!
Prayers for baby Joseph and his family.
Actually, this case demonstrates the absolute danger of socialized medicine in more ways than one. On the flip side of the authoritarian control of life-and-death decisions by medical personnel, there's the danger of having understandably delusional family members insist on endless taxpayer-funded medical procedures in cases where further treatment is ultimately futile.
If it weren't for the same "socialized medicine" system that is now making this life-and-death determination, this child would have died a natural death long ago.
This hospital is following the directive of a provincial death panel.
Give the child the procedure his parents want and send him home to die naturally and not by machine removal.
Thanks, Alberta’s Child for saying what I have been thinking.
On one hand, we don’t want “death panels”, but on the other, we cannot have the taxpayers continually charged for futile treatment. This case is understandably sympathetic, but there are also too many people out there that won’t let nature take its (sometimes) sad course, and insist that the hospital/nursing home spend vast amounts of (not their) money on artificial life-prolonging care.
Thanks. This is an important distinction between the “Baby Joseph” case and the Terri Schaivo case in Florida a few years ago. In the Schaivo case, the patient (Terri) was able to breathe on her own and only needed palliative care and food/hydration. Once you introduce the need for artificial breathing support in a medical situation where there is no anticipation of recovery, you’re simply delaying the inevitable course of a natural death.
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