Posted on 02/18/2005 3:36:08 PM PST by FreeMarket1
I posted a link to some medical information about the condition in post #79. I'm sure you're already aware of the information, but others might want to check it out. It does say that *several* children with this genetic defect make it to early childhood.
http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic2233.htm
Have you ever had to make such a decision concerning a loved one?
I understand that now. I didn't see the prior articles until you posted them. Highlandbreeze said (s)he has seen this disease too.
I feel terrible for them mother.
I'm just sorry it couldn't be a different answer.
It may not have been "empathetic", and I'm sorry that I offended you, but there really is a time, and you will know it, when it is the right thing to do.
He who has the cash or the insurance gets the care.
The only alternative is to leave it to a bureaucracy with the soul of the IRS or the Judiciary.
So9
The baby is suffocating because the lungs can't sustain him. I don't know if suffocating is painful or not. Anybody?
Yes, it does, but not many.
And thank you for reposting it up here, I could have used it a few posts back.
=0)
I disagree. First of all, this child is on completely artificial life support. Secondly, this condition is terminal in all cases. ALL cases. In fact, the way I read the information on this condition, even the life support itself will eventually fail. So basically what is happening here is that this child is suffering purely because the mother is insistent upon continuing a line of treatment that isn't even effective.
Secondly, in this case, it may be propaganda, but the proponents indicate that they don't believe the child is in pain.
Well, you know that this article is certainly filled with propaganda. A quick search on Google news reveals other info too. Look, you don't need to trust the doctors in that hospital, trust the 40 other hospitals that have refused to admit the patient. Texas law requires a doctor to continue care as long as there is a reasonable probability that another hospital would admit the patient. So even if the doctor believes that what he is doing is unethical, he can't stop doing it if there's a decent shot that another hospital would too.
So, in either case, I'd say that the pain thing is a strawman. You'll have to come up with something better than that.
No, I will not. It is sufficient in this case.
Yes. We have done at home hospice with all extended family when time came.
As well we all do.
Thank you. And I'm sorry. But I couldn't handle that remark in this subject.
It is the hardest desicion that you will ever make...
To be blunt, it sucks.
The doctors talk to you to tell you how it can be done so, well let's just say that no matter what is said, you know what you are doing.
Look at this for a second:
Instead, the judge ruled that the hospital may discontinue treatment of the child, based on facts not even alleged by the hospital, specifically that the judge believed the child was suffering “significant pain.”
That 'fact' was not even brought up by the hospital. It wasn't presented to the court at all. The hospital never said that at all, but it was the main reason the judge OKed the termination of life support.
Several things here tick me off:
1. The child only had a few days left to live and then they would have turned life support off anyway. Why did they take the child away sooner? The judge wasn't even sure of his main fact.
2. The mother had no say in this. She didn't get a word in; the hospital might have been able to sit down with her and talk her into humanely letting the child go, but they didn't. Where did they go?: The court! Never mind trying to talk to the mother; let's just get a court order and tell her to buzz off.
*siiigh* It seems to me that your question implies physical abuse; if that were the case and a parent was physically abusing their child, then no, I would not excuse it.
And again: My problem with this article is the fact that the court simply said, "Go ahead and pull life support" without even hearing from the mother. That sends up red flags for me.
You were fortunate to have at home hospice. My mother was in intensive care and finally a skilled facility. We were spared some of the decision because she had made a living will. But it was still very difficult.
Dear God, for us it was a granddaughter, she was five and a half months old. If one has not faced that situtation with a loved one, they cannot know the internal hell we go through. Saying to do it is easy if you don't know the person. It's a whole different ballgame when you love them and watch them take their last breath in this world.
Umm, 4mycountry, are you aware that the hospital is paying her attorney's fees? Do you really think that they just ignored the mother's wishes and went straight to court without talking to her first?
Please don't trust just this article. It is clearly a slanted propaganda piece. Do a Google News search on "thanatophoric dysplasia" and read some other takes on the subject.
Texas Children's Hospital officials said Sun was born with a fatal genetic defect known as skeletal dysplasia that will not allow his chest cavity and lungs to grow. Sun is slowly suffocating to death because his lungs lack the capacity to support his body, according to hospital officials.
Doctors claim the child is in pain and that it is unethical to prolong his life.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1345350/posts
Well said. I made a similar point in an earlier post. We simply cannot afford to provide the kind of end-of-life care that people are insisting on. The dirty little secret of the health care debate is that more than 70% of our health care dollars go to end-of-life care. Spending untold amounts of other people's money simply to have a family member around for another month is not moral. We have gotten a lot smarter with our technology and a lot dumber with our approach to life and death.
We did lose some family in hospitals too. Some how, it is easier at home. You get to be with them.
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