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Texas hospital starving patient against family wishes
Spero News ^ | 3/20/12 | Spero News

Posted on 03/21/2012 4:30:37 PM PDT by wagglebee

Texas Right to Life denounced the decision by physicians to allegedly eliminate hydration and feeding of a patient under their care in a Texas hospital. According to the group, the hospital has refused to allow the patient and his family to take him to a nearby hospice for care. A March 20 news release from Texas Right to Life, “Willie breathed on his own through the night, but he is being dehydrated and starved to death. Because he hasn’t been fed or watered, his heart rate is dangerously low. After he breathed steadily last night, the hospital discussed hospice with the family. Now however, the facility is waiting for his heart to give out since his heart rate has diminished and will not revisit hospice care.”

Furthermore, declared the group, “They are now actively killing him, more so than yesterday.” The statement came from Elizabeth Graham, the director of Texas Right to Life.

Texas Right to Life says that the patient is a man named William, who as yet has not been further identified. The group said the hospital is located in northwest Houston, which is not yet further identified. The statement said, “Willie breathed on his own through the night, but he is being dehydrated and starved to death. Because he hasn’t been fed or watered, his heart rate is dangerously low. After he breathed steadily last night, the hospital discussed hospice with the family. Now however, the facility is waiting for his heart to give out since his heart rate has diminished and will not revisit hospice care.

The statement continued, “They are now actively killing him, more so than yesterday.” The group alleged that the physicians “pulled the plug on a patient whose family called me at the 11th hour, pleading to me to save their father's life. Despite the family's desperation to save their father, and everything Texas Right to Life did for them, the hospital's death panel decided to proceed and kill him.”

Texas Right to Life says that the patient is suffering from leukaemia, complicated by pneumonia. Taken for emergency surgery, he told his daughter before being sedated, "Fight for me, baby; I ain't done living." The man’s family had medical power of attorney and instructed the medical staff to continue their father’s medical care and treatment.

However, according to the group, physicians at the hospital decided last week that the patient’s family should either take him to another hospital or they would suspend hydration and feeding.

Trusting that their father had adequate health insurance, they asked the social worker at the hospital to arrange for a transfer. However, as the deadline approached they were told that no other hospital in the area would accept him. The family determined that the social worker had described their father as “one who had no hope of meaningful recovery, one whose quality of life was gone, one with no dignity due to his illness and disability.” As of March 19, according to Texas Right to Life, hydration and other treatment had been removed, even while the patient is now breathing on his own and has adequate medical insurance. The patient has yet to be transferred to another hospital or to hospice care.

Info: TexasRightToLife.com


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: deathpanels; euthanasia; moralabsolutes; prolife
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To: exDemMom

No, that only applies to medical staff. If this is really happening, a 3rd party such as a family member could tell a reporter, or the TRL all the details and it could be dissemination without running afoul of any laws. One would think that given the alleged situation, that family members would be screaming the details to high heaven, yet the article is full of nothing but vague allusions.


21 posted on 03/21/2012 5:08:30 PM PDT by Melas (u)
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To: wagglebee

Murder is the right word


22 posted on 03/21/2012 5:09:24 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: wagglebee

We’ll have to start our own underground hospitals - like the underground railroad.


23 posted on 03/21/2012 5:09:40 PM PDT by little jeremiah (We will have to go through hell to get out of hell. Signed, a fanatic)
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To: wagglebee
Many have asked me which medical facility where this happened but the family asked me not to reveal it at the moment.

Oh come on Wags! Surely this sets off even your radar! By this account, this facility and staff just murdered this man against the family's wishes, and yet the family is asking that the identity of those involved not be disclosed? How completely cooperative and nice of them.

24 posted on 03/21/2012 5:13:03 PM PDT by Melas (u)
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To: wagglebee
nursing homes/hospitals can refuse anybody and often they do....

they'll come with reasons why....but if you have a morbidly obese patient, they are hard to place....a patient on restraints..hard or impossible to place in my region....a person who has complicated issues...hard to place....

we don't know the condition of this "willie" because the whole story is washed in secrecy....although after death, I am not sure Hippa still applies.....

was he 450 pounds?...was he on a bipap machine?...maybe had extensive wounds needing wound vacs...frequent suctioning....trach care?...

and if the family wanted hydration, would that require an elaborate IV site and very expensive TPN (IV nutrition)?....

the right to life people are not doing themselves any favors when they paint such a wide brush over these cases...each case is different...

and whatever happened to letting nature take its course?.....the very old and the very frail and the very very sick used to be able to die....

pneumonia used to be the "blessing of the aged"....

25 posted on 03/21/2012 5:14:45 PM PDT by cherry
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To: Melas
In the past families have gone public and it often makes the hospital dig in further; perhaps the family thought that Texas Right to Life could make them back down.

Perhaps now that he has passed away they don't want any publicity.

26 posted on 03/21/2012 5:18:45 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: cherry; Dr. Brian Kopp; trisham; DJ MacWoW; little jeremiah; Coleus; narses; Lesforlife; ...
nursing homes/hospitals can refuse anybody and often they do....

they'll come with reasons why....but if you have a morbidly obese patient, they are hard to place....a patient on restraints..hard or impossible to place in my region....a person who has complicated issues...hard to place....

He was ALREADY IN A HOSPITAL.

How many morbidly obese LEUKEMIA patients have you run across?

the right to life people are not doing themselves any favors when they paint such a wide brush over these cases...each case is different...

Yeah we've heard all the "each case is different" stuff before, but the culture of death has NEVER seen a case where they didn't think killing the person was the answer.

and whatever happened to letting nature take its course?.....the very old and the very frail and the very very sick used to be able to die....

Really? Have you or anyone you loved ever been on antibiotics? Ever had an appendectomy? Bypass surgery? Ever taken blood pressure or cholesterol medication? Do YOU avoid doctors no matter what and just "let nature take its course"?

27 posted on 03/21/2012 5:26:22 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

My family also...husband’s elderly (88) mother. It was done without a word right under her children’s noses. Until we got there no one noticed that she was never given water, nor did any of them think to do so.

We invited hospice “out.” She made a remarkable improvement during the time that we were there because we constantly gave her ice & sips of water...she even sat up in bed and ate some ice cream the night before we had to leave to go back to our home.

I wish the story had a happy ending, but we had to leave, and within the next week she was right back in the same condition...daughter had called hospice back in.

One thing I know for sure, God will recompense to each one in the end.


28 posted on 03/21/2012 5:39:55 PM PDT by TurkeyLurkey
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To: combat_boots

I fought hospice years ago with my Mother. I would NEVER put my husband into hospice. I think it is a scam.


29 posted on 03/21/2012 5:48:05 PM PDT by I_be_tc
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To: cherry
Over the last ten years or so I have worked with a large number of aged who contracted pneumonia. I have yet to meet the one who considered it a blessing.

This "William" sure didn't.

30 posted on 03/21/2012 5:56:23 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: wagglebee
I worked for a major Boston hospital for many years.There was once an incident where a patient died due to a genuine error by one of the staff surgeons.For at least a week after the death the family camped at the main entrance carrying big signs saying "XYZ Hospital Killed My Wife/Mother/Sister".There was nothing the hospital could do.

The family involved here should do the same kind of thing.

31 posted on 03/21/2012 6:02:06 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Jimmy Carter Is No Longer The Worst President To Have Served In My Lifetime.)
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To: combat_boots

I have too.


32 posted on 03/21/2012 6:04:11 PM PDT by kalee (The offenses we give, we write in the dust; Those we take, we engrave in marble. J Huett 1658)
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To: wagglebee

I think an appropriate response would be essentially a “force option”.

Once a destination has been determined, get some sympathetic medical personnel, and half a dozen strong-arm men along with a gurney and ambulance crew. Then, in the early hours of the morning go in and take him.

Admittedly, the strong arms will likely be arrested, and that should be part of the plan that if the hospital staff or security interfere, that it is the strong arms who will be the focus of force as the patient is spirited away.

It will take months or years to get it all sorted out in court, and by then the patient will likely have died a natural death.

But it will cause reverberations throughout the medical community and likely the government, to the effect that people will fight to keep their loved ones from being medically murdered.

So a battery of sympathetic lawyers should also be standing by, since the real battle will be in court.


33 posted on 03/21/2012 6:08:34 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." -- Hillary Clinton)
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To: wagglebee

Holy COW! How could this law even be constitutional? And if Wiki is correct, it became law in 1999. But how could that be? Wasn’t President Bush the governor then? I cannot believe a pro-life Christian like Bush would have ever signed such a thing


34 posted on 03/21/2012 6:23:12 PM PDT by Lex Gabba
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To: wagglebee

“the hospital has refused to allow the patient and his family to take him to a nearby hospice for care”

Me, in that situation:

“Allow” presumes I recognize your authority in this matter!”
“We are leaving, NOW!”


35 posted on 03/21/2012 6:24:44 PM PDT by G Larry (We are NOT obliged to carry the snake in our pocket and then dismiss the bites as natural behavior.)
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To: wagglebee

are they starving him, or just withdrawing treatment that won’t help (futile care theory)?

End stage leukemia along with pneumonia? Sounds like IV fluid would only prolong his terminal agony, not prolong his life. And Catholic law does not require extraordinary care...IV fluid here means either a deep IV line (which will only increase the chance of infection and heart failure) or spending hours trying to find a vein that won’t collapse.

I’d hold off before I dare to judge this matter.


36 posted on 03/21/2012 7:08:14 PM PDT by LadyDoc
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To: wagglebee

are they starving him, or just withdrawing treatment that won’t help (futile care theory)?

End stage leukemia along with pneumonia? Sounds like IV fluid would only prolong his terminal agony, not prolong his life. And Catholic law does not require extraordinary care...IV fluid here means either a deep IV line (which will only increase the chance of infection and heart failure) or spending hours trying to find a vein that won’t collapse.

I’d hold off before I dare to judge this matter.


37 posted on 03/21/2012 7:08:42 PM PDT by LadyDoc
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

I think an appropriate response would be essentially a “force option”.


And not just for circumstances like these.


38 posted on 03/21/2012 8:17:43 PM PDT by little jeremiah (We will have to go through hell to get out of hell. Signed, a fanatic)
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To: cherry; wagglebee

How is depriving someone of water and nutrition “letting nature take its course”?


39 posted on 03/21/2012 8:22:20 PM PDT by little jeremiah (We will have to go through hell to get out of hell. Signed, a fanatic)
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To: wagglebee
"...the hospital has refused to allow the patient and his family to take him to a nearby hospice for care.

By what legal right or authority can a hospital keep a patient incarcerated to prevent them being taken to hospice care?

I cannot imagine that hospital successfully resisting my (very well-armed) family if we knew one of ours needed hospice care.

40 posted on 03/21/2012 8:52:20 PM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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