Posted on 12/10/2015 9:04:02 PM PST by kathsua
A Houston, Texas hospital is attempting to seize guardianship of a disabled patient shown in a shocking video begging to stay alive. Chris Dunn has received national attention over a video showing him begging and praying to stay alive and to now have Methodist Hospital remove his life-sustaining medical treatment that it wants to remove.
Now, the hospital is attempting to take away guardianship from Dunn’s family.
Yesterday, the attorneys representing Evelyn Kelly contested Methodist Hospital’s application for custodial guardianship of Evelyn’s adult son, Chris Dunn. Kelly is his Medical Power of Attorney and trying to ensure that Chris continues to receive life-sustaining treatments that the hospital is attempting to remove. Methodist has invoked the statutory process found in the Texas Advanced Directives Act (TADA-Chapter 166.046 of the Health & Safety Code), which allows the hospital to override medical directives of a patient and provide only ten days’ notice before involuntarily withdrawing life-sustaining treatment.
Even if a patient is conscious, able to communicate, walk, or pay for his own care, Texas law authorizes hospitals and physicians to override the medical decisions of a patient and remove care, including food and water, after providing the required ten days’ notice.
Officials with Texas Right to Life informed LifeNews today that Dunn’s only recourse is to find another facility that will offer him an ICU bed – a daunting task on a rushed time frame for anyone, but even more so when the hospital has determined to end your life.
“Last week, Chris’s mother was granted a second two-week extension of the 10 day period to find another facility, a task made even more difficult because the hospital will not provide a diagnosis of Chris’s condition. The same day the extension was granted, however, Methodist filed an injunction seeking custodial guardianship of Chris. The hospital is thus attempting to prevent Evelyn from representing her son and defending his right to continue receiving care,†the pro-life group said.
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The pro-life group added:
In November when the hospital initially attempted to remove care, Evelyn contacted Texas Right to Life, which has assisted the family in the difficult legal process and provided legal assistance. Yesterday, the lawyers representing Chris and Evelyn, Trey Trainor and Joe Nixon, contested Methodist Hospital’s attempt to seize guardianship. Trainor and Nixon are the same lawyers who appear in video documentation of Chris communicating his desire to continue receiving treatment and for his mother’s attorneys to fight on his behalf. In court documents filed today, Trainor and Nixon note this video evidence that Chris is alert and responsive, only intermittently sedated depending on the dosage of medication.
The court documents filed yesterday reveal that Justine Moore, an employee of Methodist Hospital, applied to be Chris’s Permanent Guardian. As Trainor and Nixon note, Chris lived with his mother before his illness and has since indicated that he would prefer her to speak on his behalf before anyone else. Furthermore, as a former EMT, Chris is well aware of what life-sustaining treatment entails. When asked explicitly if he wants to continue receiving such care, he clearly communicated that he does.
Finally, and most shockingly, Trainor and Nixon point to the inappropriate nature of Moore’s application for guardianship. Moore was the very same employee who revealed to Evelyn the hospital’s desire to remove care. She cannot therefore be an impartial guardian, and there is evidence that she would in fact be acting directly contrary to Chris’s wishes for his own medical care.
Texas Right to Life condemns Houston Methodist Hospital’s legal maneuvering to force their anti-Life quality of life judgments upon Chris. Until now, the hospital has been hiding behind the unethical, unconstitutional, and unprecedented Texas law; however, now that a judge has shown skepticism at the process allowed by law, the hospital is going out of their way to remove the little legal protection Chris still has, his Medical Power of Attorney. This reveals the lengths to which this hospital will go to ensure that the final authority of these Life and death decisions remain in the hands of the physicians and hospital that does not see Chris’s life as worth living.
Dunn is one of countless Texans who have been victimized by the draconian Texas Advance Directives Act (TADA), enacted by the Texas Legislature in 1999. The law – which benefits the medical lobby and jeopardizes medically vulnerable Texans – protects the financial and discriminatory interests of hospitals and physicians by abrogating the civil liberties of patients.
As Texas Right to Life explains about the law: “When a hospital or physician determines for any reason that they disagree with a patient’s decision about his or her own medical treatment and invokes TADA, Texas law protects those healthcare providers as they remove life-sustaining treatment from the patient even when doing so means overriding the patient’s desire and right to live—and even when the treatment is benefitting the patient. The law does not require that the hospital inform the patient or family about the reasons or basis for the removal of treatment, which could include financial reasons, discrimination, or subjective quality of life value judgments about the life of the patient.â€
This is the rabbit hole of “incompetence” determinations. It began with Terri, who couldn’t beg. Now it continues to this fellow, who CAN and DOES beg. How was it determined that the help here was impossible?
God is calling our hearts out for being seriously AWOL!!!
There was another thread about this outrageous case last week on FR.
Our future under Obamacare.
Remember when all the giddy voters voted to pass voluntary euthanasia? The commie ‘RATS have now taken it one step further. Euthanasia isn’t voluntary anymore.
God is calling our hearts out for being seriously AWOL!!!
George W. Bush signed this law into effect.
Oh, Saint George, we are supposed to repent or something? Not if we never worshiped Saint George. Try implying something else for a change.
I certainly wasn’t defending Georgie, I was pointing out the irony that Jebbie watched over Terri’s state sanctioned murder and big brother put the mechanism in place for Texas to follow suit in this case.
What the hospital is doing is Hitlerian.
First they came for the disabled and no one did a thing cause they were seen as burdens
Next they’ll come for Christians cause they are haters
Then they’ll come for all who don’t fall in line with group think
Such is the Left.
View post on imgur.com
The woman asking to become his guardian who initially informed his mother of the hospital's plan to kill this young man, is on LinkedIn.
Be sure and log out of LinkedIn before you look at her profile there as it keeps a record of you looking.
Wow- thanks, W - you and your brother are in the tank with Soros. Who knew...
I suspect without it being said that this guy's condition is terminal and he doesn't have that long to live...
I suspect that after 2 months of charity care the hospital is at its wits end.....
extended care facilities or other hospitals are very reluctant I'm sure to accept this man's transfer due to the unrealistic demands of the mother....
and from other articles, not all the family agrees with the mother....
why does this man have a breathing tube down his throat, apparently thru his mouth?....long term ventilation patients usually get a trach...
it does not add up....
For all the bleeding heart pro-lifers, who is going to pay for his care?
The mother’s attorney should contact a Catholic hospital to see if they will take him. Catholic hospitals are run by nuns and they take life seriously. My husband had cancer and we used a Catholic hospital. Their level of care for my husband was excellent. They also took care of me, taking me to their convent area in the hospital to eat with them in their private dining area. There is no way they would have wanted to kill anyone in that hospital no matter how sick he/she was.
Houston is lost. A Methodist hospital? I think we lost Texas without a shot fired. Too bad, I had it on the short list of places that are free.
Unconstitutional? Try murder! This story can’t be fully flushed out.
It’s a lesson in being careful. The slide that has now given us Barack Obama and more, was going on prior to him.
Texas as a whole, there may be some hope. Lots of spots of rot, no doubt about it. Some of it due to demographic factors that Trump is hoping to effect brakes upon.
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