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 ...
Stop listening to the parents when they continue to call this a 'simple tonsillectomy.' That's being said for public sympathy while the family is using HIPAA to prevent the hospital from speaking publicly on the details.
This morbidly obese girl had sleep apnea.
She underwent uvulopalatopharyngoplasty, which is far more extensive and risky than a tonsillectomy.
For those who don't know what this surgery is, excess tissue is removed to help wide the airway. Included in this tissue is the uvula (thing that hangs down in the back of your throat), a large part of the soft palate, tonsils, adenoids & pharynx.
The bleeding issue is a known risk of the surgery and could have occurred without any negligence on the part of the surgeons, nurses, or hospital.
Like too many arrogant ‘doctors’ you presume to tell me what I may think. I have zero respect for you. You presume so much that you are incapable of rational perspective. I expect next you will order me to think of you as a scientist. When I refer to the gas passers, that is not referring to competent, diligent anesthesiologists. But your arrogance prevents you from realizing that. Not one of my twelve surgeries in life has been done without attendance by a competent anesthesiologist, usually overseeing a nurse anesthetist. I have been blessed to avoid the gas passers ...
Thank you for the info!
Yes, we heard thru the grapevine anyway that the surgery was more involved than just tonsils, but the mass media keeps referring to it that way...so anyway....what a tragedy!
If the more extensive surgery was necessary, then it had to be done even if risky. Sometimes we need these things, but the result was still tragic.
(What i find amusing, and this is a total aside and has nothing to do with this girl or the hospital...........is that uvulopalatopharyngoplasty leaves a person unable to speak, pronounce French. HA! I didn’t need an uvulopalatopharyngoplasty to almost flunk out of French class due to difficulty pronouncing it, ha! ha!)
Who peed in your bran flakes this morning? Try frosted flakes. The sugar might sweeten your nasty disposition.
The uvulopalatopharyngoplasty was a quick, but risky, fix.
I have no idea whether the physician(s) recommended it, but I feel certain there's a signed informed consent floating out there that mentions excessive bleeding and risk of death.
Try to keep up ...
Perhaps if you were attended to by an anesthesiologist instead of a nurse overseen by an anesthesiologist you would have enough brain cells to see the fallacy of your statements commanding that I not presume to tell you what to think, yet presuming to paint such sweeping perspective as to my ability. I can back up my statements with nine years of post doctoral training and four board certifications including neurocritical care. So yes, I do know something about the brain and anesthesia at large. The fact is that arrogance is often presumed by the ignorant in the light of the truth. Finally, a man is judged not by his friends, but by his detractors. In this case that you have no respect for me, i am comforted, for if the willfully ignorant have no respect for me, then I must be doing something correct.
gee, well if the surgery does turn out to have been unnecessary then the result is even more tragic...
what an awful thing to happen....
(I guess the only alternative is more big brother state-ism, but..... sometimes I wonder if we are doing the best we can to let any parent have surgery done on their kids... without some sort of review or ??? Again, I trust the govt far less than I do even the worst of parents.......so I do not have a better answer for this question........and don’t claim I do......................but the kids can sure end up the losers sometimes, can’t they?)
Thatta boy, stay in character.
One of the problems with the brain death/organ donation issue is the definition of brain dead that varies by location. If there were agreement among various countries and states in the criteria used I think there might be more acceptance. In some locations the committee that decides not he criteria to be used is also the committee that handles organ transplants. It’s a slippery slope from there.
There is a very rigid definition of brain death. In fact whole brain death is probably the best in terms of organ procurement as a result that the patient is dead, but it is still possible to oxygenate the tissues for harvest and subsequent transplant. On the flip side, non-beating heart donation requires speed, and usually by the time the heart stops many of the most delicate tissues are destroyed. There is a very rigid wall of separation between declaring and procurement for this exact reason.
Hospitals do it all the time when they pilfer organs from "brain dead" but living persons without anesthesia.
On Friday, the Alameda County Coroner issued a death certificate stating that Jahi died on Dec. 12, three days after doctors at Children's performed a tonsillectomy that led to complications.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Hospital-agrees-to-let-Jahi-McMath-family-take-5111584.php?t=b88f840b5701b1089f#/0
She's DEAD in California. More info in article, including...Hospital agrees to let Jahi McMath family take girl
Title:Tonsillectomy and Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP)
This is a common surgical procedure done under general anesthesia. On the day of surgery, the anesthesiologist, operating room nurse, and doctor will see you at the pre-operation holding area. An I.V. will be placed. You are then taken to the operating room. Once under anesthesia a breathing tube is placed. The surgery is performed through the mouth and the breathing tube is removed before you are aware of it. The surgery takes about one hour. There are no outside incisions. There are dissolvable stitches in the back of the throat.
Yes, complications can occur following any surgery. The hospital staff is supposed to keep check on a patient and handle those complications. Like many other surgeries, UPPP has a mortality rate of less than one percent. Most of the patients with serious complications following UPPP do not die. So, we have to ask what happened in this case. If the child's weight was an issue, then the surgeon had the option to refuse to perform the surgery until she lost weight.
I was responding to your comment about the parents “milking” the situation. When I used the term “hospital staff,” I was referring mostly to the people (nurses, assistants, etc.) who care for a patient following surgery. Did the staff alert the surgeon or a doctor to the complications right away? Or did they brush off the mother’s concerns? There are serious questions to be asked in this case.
I misstated the risk of the operation, but 1% mortality is still 1%.
He or she is a flipping idiot.
It varies by location.
Doctor, your posts are not coming across as very Christian.
I’ve had to deal with many different doctors, surgeons, nurses, etc. Some (who are considered top-notch in their field) are down-to-earth, sympathetic, and will take on a whole hospital and other doctors to fight for their patients.
But, there are others who sneer at their patients and patients’ families. Your posts are coming across as sneers.
The rate of mortality is actually less than 1%, like many other surgeries.
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