Posted on 01/02/2014 1:08:18 PM PST by Anton.Rutter
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A California hospital is unwilling to allow an outside doctor to fit a 13-year-old declared brain dead after tonsil surgery with the breathing and feeding tubes that would allow her to be safely transferred to another facility, its lawyer said Tuesday.
Children's Hospital Oakland will not permit the procedures to be performed on its premises because Jahi McMath is legally dead in the view of doctors who have examined her, lawyer Douglas Straus wrote in a letter to the girl's family.
"Performing medical procedures on the body of a deceased human being is simply not something Children's Hospital can do or ask its staff to assist in doing," he said.
The refusal appeared to reverse the position articulated Monday by a hospital spokesman. He said the hospital would allow a doctor retained by the family to insert a feeding tube and to replace the oral ventilator keeping Jahi's heart beating with a tracheal tube — surgical procedures that would stabilize Jahi if she is moved to a facility willing to keep caring for her.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I’d wager that $10,000 per day doesn’t even begin to cover it. Just sayin’..
Please note I did not initially say you were deliberately lying.
I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you were simply using inflammatory rhetoric to try and persuade emotionally.
When you redoubled on your mischaracterization of her condition I surmised you are overtly and deliberately lying for effect.
Your claims about her brain liquifying are empty and more colorful rhetoric, meaningless.
She became “brain dead” well before Christmas. This is not the same as dying and does not make her a corpse or a cadaver.
An almost two week old corpse would be in very different condition as she is in now.
Let me ask you. Is her blood circulating? Is her bone marrow still producing blood cells?
Is she on nutrient supplement? Is her digestive system still working?
Do her kidneys still function?
Etc...
Yes her blood is circulating. A machine is responsible for that. All other body functions happening are a result of the blood being circulated . . . artificially. Her brain is gone. It will not function regardless of a machine pumping her blood or not. To understand better what is happening here, I kindly suggest you research what docs are saying about this soul. I don’t think you have a grasp on the diagnosis. I’m not typing that to be mean, I really want to to gain an understanding about what is happening here. Now if she’s not brain dead, that’s a whole different story. Good night.
Your description jibes with all I have been saying.
You did not describe a corpse.
I have not argued she is not brain dead or that there is a chance of recovery.
The hospital would not allow a willing physician to do minor surgery (food tube, trach) in order to allow the girl to go to long term care. The hospital is not “only requiring what they must by law”. One long term care facility backed out when the procedure was refused.
The girl may not recover, but she is not a dead body. The hospital staff are making this more painful and difficult than it needs to be, because they can and because it is in their long-term financial interest, and I hope the family sues the socks off of them.
This young girl should never have ended up in this position after undergoing a relatively routine surgery. Of course her mother is going to fight hard to give her child every chance possible, no matter what the doctors or the "ethics committee" says.
There are too many mistakes happening in hospitals today. Many of us have had experience with hospital staff that does not care, does not pay close attention, brushes off concerns too easily, etc., and then a loved one ends up in this position because a family's concerns were not heeded. It's a parent's instinct to protect a child, and this mother does not trust the hospital now, as she has every reason not to.
We had the same experiences when my father was in the hospital. Good for you for standing strong! It is a fight at hospitals. Doctors do tend to "gang up" on people to push them into making decisions. And the doctors who are willing to try to help a patient often face challenges from other doctors.
He is a real doc. And absolutely correct.
Jesus can raise her from the dead. The docs and hospital cannot. And Jesus can do it without their help if He chooses. Its time to let go.....
Copious and repetitive 3-7 syllable words in your aggressive and vacuous personal attacks is injudicious. That is all.
I and several others have explained why you are wrong several times over on this thread and others. If you refuse to educate yourself on the topic and spout off based on your feelings then you cannot be helped. Good day.
Remember a bad outcome is not necessarily a mistake. The practice of medicine is still an art. Not every body reacts the same way, and it is not predictable. The frustrating thing about being a physician is that you can do everything perfectly and still have a bad outcome — the act of God. I weep that the lawyers have won (see tagline) in equating every bad outcome as a result of a mistake, or worse, malpractice. Very few physicians are guilty of malpractice — namely the intentional ignoring of a standard of care. On the other hand, there is always someone willing to blame a physician or a nurse for a bad outcome. The brutal truth in this case? Airway surgery in morbidly obese (and the child was morbidly obese) for obstructive sleep apnea is indeed a high risk procedure. Is it possible that the parents were seeking the quick fix (surgery) versus the disciplined? I cannot answer, but in my experience, many people turn to high risk surgery to solve years and years of poor discipline, and when you roll the dice, sometimes a bad result happens. Tragic? Yes. Mistake? We cannot know, at least not yet.
Don’t bother. I asked for his credentials, and all I got was how I was wrong and that I had transitioned from lying to deliberately lying. The writer walks about colorful rhetoric. Ever notice how some people accuse you at that which they are most proficient and blind to what, in fact, they are doing? I stand by my statement — if and when he decides to fess up as to his learned opinion — I will listen and debate on grounds of equality — until then, he (or she) is merely what the Macbeth soliloquy so profoundly and aptly called “a poor player who struts and fret his hour upon the stage — a tale told by an idiot — full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.”
Thank you for answering my question. I’m now a little more sure that she is in fact dead. There is still a little room in my mind for doubt. Either way, it’s a tragic situation, and my heart goes out to Jahi and her family.
aka--A troll by any other name is still a troll.
THis is beyond tragic. Unlike some on this thread who cannot see the truth, please do not confuse the analysis of what physicians are faced with every day as an abdication of the emotion that this is horrifying. I can tell you stories of great tragedy and heart wrenching issues that physicians and nurses face everyday, and few people care to understand. Thank you for at least listening to all the arguments and coming to a conclusion based on the issues, not the emotions. God bless you and may you enjoy a peaceful 2014.
Well played — I love your style.
Thank you for this post it is what I was searching for when clicking on this thread.
How sad for her mother. It is as I feared: it seems she is in denial.
We should all keep her and her daughter in our prayers.
I agree, it is so sad. I am sure there is both denial and guilt in this, and I know that she is grasping at straws. But enabling this is the wrong thing to do.
He was nothing more than a shell. It is still haunting to think of his eyes. All we had to do was look at his eyes. Nothing. He was truly someone who could be described as the living dead. Alzheimer’s had destroyed his brain and robbed his body. His soul, his awareness, his humanity had long since been pushed out by this awful disease process.
He is who I think of when I read someone is clinically dead. His heart was beating and his lungs functioned. PERIOD. Letting nature take its course, it was only a matter if time before his body passed.
Granted, the circumstances are not the same as Jahi’s. He had a disease process; Jahi had post operative complications. But the end point is the same. Jahi’s soul has passed. It will never return. She is in God's care now. It's time to let her body pass as well.
I understand her mothers agony. If I was in her place, I would cling to every last measure of hope. I would see signs of life that were not there. I would see what my heart wanted me to see.
Gas_dr has given an excellent medical perspective and insight. I'd be willing to bet Jahi’s nurse's would give an assessment which fit hand & glove with what gas_dr explained.
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