Posted on 12/06/2015 9:39:14 PM PST by Rusty0604
A Texas mother claims a hospital is seeking to end the life of a her son who is a fully conscious patient. The patient’s mother says that a hospital administrative death panel is “Playing God†in deciding whether her son has the “quality of life†to live.
Her son, Christopher David Dunn, 46, a fully-conscious former peace officer, is receiving life-sustaining care. Hospital officials in Houston are fighting to stop that care.
The man, his mother, and his lawyers, have filed a lawsuit in an attempt to save the man’s life. His attorney, Joe Nixon, told Breitbart Texas, “A criminal on death row in Texas has more rights than a patient in a Texas hospital.†He says a Texas statute denies a patient all due process rights and is unconstitutional.
A video (below) made by Ms. Kelly on December 2nd and produced with the help of a Houston-based pro-life organization, Texas Right to Life, shows that Dunn understands the questions asked of him, and he communicates that he wants to live.
Dunn is a former sheriff’s deputy and has worked as a Homeland Security officer but had no health insurance when he got sick. He has been in the hospital for eight weeks since a noncancerous mass was found where his small intestine connects to the pancreas. Ms. Kelly says the mass is squeezing off the small intestine and is affecting his liver and kidneys.
“When they found out that Chris did not have insurance, they said they were done,†Chris’ mother claimed.
She says the hospital wants to turn off the breathing machine and administer a dose of morphine and another drug she did not know the name of. She was told it would take only three to five minutes for Chris to die if the drugs were administered.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
America lost it's collective mind for a short time and I was ashamed of my conservative brothers and sisters. The problem is the lack of God in the culture. To believe you have the right to kill someone else because you think she would be better off is just evil fascism poking it's head out. It's no different than gun control saying you don't "need" a certain weapon or a certain amount of ammo just because you don't see the purpose. Deciding how much salt and sugar you think ought to be put in my food and other things all come from this same need to control others. The main purpose for ObamaCare is to cut of money and services to people they deem less worthy.
This same thinking will eventually convince us to go die when you have your 70th birthday, or kill your infant if they have Down's syndrome to save society. It's been tried before during the 1940's in Germany, but was put down for the time being.
We should all learn to listen to ourselves and notice when we start to decide other people's fate on anything and repent. You should hear what goes through my thoughts when liberals are in the news. Only Jesus saves me from spiraling into a maniacal __________ spree. You fill in the blank.
I’m sorry but I don’t see where it says that they want him moved to long term facility. If so, lack of insurance may be a problem. In TX right to life article, he wants to live to see Christmas if possible. I’ve read many stories of hospitals keeping illegals in those conditions longer than this guy.
The man is screwed...but I don't have any info about whether the tumor is operable but they won't operate because he can't pay or if they wouldn't operate(able to pay or not) because the tumor is so big and the damage is just too extensive. Sometimes comfort care is the only option but the hospital is just being too hamfisted in it's approach. I know that as an RN, relatives have pleaded with us to try to get mom or sweetheart past the Christmas season...no one wants to remember their relative as having died every time Christmas comes along! Hospital systems need to make adjustments and to realize that it may make fiscal sense in the long run in how they help their patients and patients' families to accept their impending deaths instead of just brutally setting a fiscal "dead"line(sarcasm intended) and enforcing it as though it were a guillotine!
If you read my post above at # 79 about my mother's acute pancreatitis, it is very much as what you described. And while I used the term that her pancreas was "liquefying" her other internal organs, from your post I now recall her doctors using the term "peritonitis" and especially "autodigestion syndrome" in my mother's case.
My mother was however completely unresponsive when her life support was removed but as her birthday was January 7th and was during a major blizzard (and FWIW, my husband volunteered to use his 4WD vehicle to transport doctors and nurses back and forth and did so for nearly 24 hours straight as I sat at my mother's bedside the entire time, sometimes catching a few winks of sleep in a chair and also spending a lot of time talking to the nurses and thanking them for being there and even helping fill in where I could, if only just to stop by and talk to and spend a little time other patients whose family couldn't make it to the hospital) the doctors did not even approach us about removing her life support until several days later, even as by now, I was coming to the realization that she would not live through this. I also recall several of the nurses and some of the doctors actually crying as we, the family despite the major blizzard going on, still all made it to the hospital to be with her and brought her hand made cards from her grand and great grand children and as we all stood at her bedside and all sung her "Happy Birthday."
If this man is indeed terminal and without any reasonable or medically supported hope of recovery; I would agree with the doctors and the hospital with not continuing further treatments or any extraordinary measures and only palliative care and pain relief. But I also agree that while he is still conscious and able to communicate that his life support should not be removed or his eventual death hastened in any way.
The article is attempting to portray Mrs. Dunn and her son as victims so it is slanted in that respect. I'm almost surprised that they included the letter from the hospital to the mother because that destroys the mother's attempted martyrdom of her son.
The 2nd paragraph of the hospital letter (dated November 13):
"Eleven days from today, Chris's physicians are allowed to withdraw and withhold life-sustaining treatments and to establish a plan of care designed to promote his comfort and dignity. During this period, the physicians and others will assist you in trying to find a doctor and facility that are willing to provide the treatments that you request. A copy of Chris's medical record for the past 30 days at Houston Methodist Hospital is delivered to you at this time for your use in trying to find other providers."
Page 3 of the letter provides additional information including the fact that "If a transfer can be arranged, the patient will be responsible for the costs of the transfer."
So the mother can either hire a lawyer - most likely funded by some right-to-life group - and get lots of sympathy and free publicity, or she can go through all the hassle and expense to move her son. She's opted to go with the cheap route. After all, if she loses the lawsuit, she can always move her son then. While the article portrays the mother as being frustrated at trying to save her son's life, that's just totally misleading. She has the ability to save his life today.
I’m sorry for your family’s loss, some causes of death are just idiopathic in nature, just beyond the reach of science to categorize just yet. The use of an autopsy shows integrity on the part of the medical officials involved. Sometimes they find that the cause may very well have been viral in nature,,,I remember a few people over the years getting a flu or having some type of a stomach bug, then they developed diabetes afterward as it seemed their Islet cells had been taken out. Some folks had been healthy, they get a viral syndrome then as that improves their hearts develop slow cardiomyopathy and failure necessitating a transplant if there was one available and if they were a suitable candidate for one. Some folks just reach their due dates and God takes them home!
Other articles speak of spots seen on his liver and no biopsy was done(so how do they know it wasn’t malignant?). Yeah we need more info so we know how to respond properly to the story...it could very well be a very bad prognosis that the family can’t accept as of yet!
Yeah that simply sounds like the initial issue.
seriously, a non cancerous tumor near his pancreas put him on a ventilator?....what kind of ailment is that?... and I wonder what other family members are thinking?...sounds like there is discord in the family about this...
In these times we often forget surgery has risk including the risk of post operative infections such as respiratory type which would explain it. MRSI may have happened. Or he may have had a Pulmonary event during surgery. Yes family discord can also be an issue.
IN the case of my wife 30 years ago at quadriplegia onset they gave her 5 years life expectancy. By some miracle she made it twenty nine and a half years with many a close call and by The Grace of GOD and skilled doctors she pulled through. I saw her initial Neurologist in the hospital a few months after she had passed while I was visiting someone. He recognized me even after 29 years and talked to me. I said well you gave her 5 years and she made it 29. He said today I would still say only 5 years but the fact she made it 29 is because you took good care of her.
I've learned a lot over the last year about doctors. I would not want to be in their shoes. Most are over worked, have to separate themselves emotionally from their patient to do the job {which they really can't separate themselves but just in the time frame needed to treat the patient}, and work very long hours. I saw our primary care doctor hours start at doing hospital rounds at 6:00am and I saw him in the Lobby after 8:30pm fixing to leave. Last office visit he told me he thinks about her daily. For what it's worth my wife was a CNA who had sat with many patients who were in their final minutes. She knew what was going on inside her and accepted it. I had problems telling her she was going to die and our doctor helped me. But she already knew it.
In the case of the man in Texas none of us know enough about all of it I'm sure. What complications have the doctors been trying to say to them that no one wants to hear? Also keep in mind they are under secrecy laws and can't defend themselves. And again there is the very real finding a place to go issues with long term respirator care. Our medical knowledge and capabilities is reaching a point it exceeds our wisdom.
I thought my comment was easily understandable. It is commonly assumed that to kill a person is a sin and a crime.
The question I thought that I had put forward was this. How is it legal or moral to “up the dose” to ease “mother” to her reward. Yet illegal to poison her brownies, or simply shoot her in the back of the head?
The result is the same. A person has decided to play God, and ended the inconvenience of watching a loved one suffer during the death process. One is messy and verboten. The other, quite acceptable.
I don’t know about your experience, but I have had several with family or friends who have died. In nearly every case, a decision is made by a “nurse” or doctor to “up the dose”. In every case I have watched this happen, death was really not imminent. What was imminent, is that medical staff and family now are shortening the lives of people they “love” in the name of compassion.
I watched my neighbor do just that to her father 3-4 months ago. Three days before his passing, he was fighting to get outside, he wanted to have a smoke and a ride in his wheelchair. He literally was clawing his way out of the door, while his “loved one” (a legal nurse) fought to keep him in. He was “dying” for months, and literally 3 days later did so. She explained that he was “getting too much to handle”, and had to “up the dose”.
What I have described is not only now accepted, it is legal in the sense that no legal authority will investigate unless it is the death of someone named “Gotrocks”, or Bill Gates.
Thanks.
When someone dies in a hospital of “natural causes” it if common for an overdose of pain meds to be contibuting factor in the death.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. Read post 46 to understand what hospital is up against. Finding a facility to accept him would be very involved if in fact one is available. Unless it was Hospice {off the Vent} he would need a level of care nearly all nursing homes do not do long term. Those facilities are very limited.
It IS NOT legal to increase dosage in order to hasten death, and even in the place it is legal it is a sin.
The result is the same. A person has decided to play God, and ended the inconvenience of watching a loved one suffer during the death process. One is messy and verboten. The other, quite acceptable.
BOTH are unacceptable.
I don't know about your experience, but I have had several with family or friends who have died. In nearly every case, a decision is made by a "nurse" or doctor to "up the dose". In every case I have watched this happen, death was really not imminent. What was imminent, is that medical staff and family now are shortening the lives of people they “love†in the name of compassion.
What you witness is a crime.
What I have described is not only now accepted, it is legal in the sense that no legal authority will investigate unless it is the death of someone named "Gotrocks", or Bill Gates.
Let me make myself perfectly clear, do YOU condone these measures to hasten death? YES or NO.
bump
Perhaps all the people pushing to be able to murder this fully conscious man, forcing him to beg for his life, should join ISIS, in order to further their "careers".
I sure wouldn't want to be any of them on Judgement day.
Up the dose doesn't as such meaning speeding up death. I've done Hospice care twice. The first was my dad who had terminal cancer. His only meds for pain were Hydrocodone and Morphine. I controlled the meds and the meds were given to me by a Hospice worker who only gave us several days supply at a time.
I looked all meds up myself, their minimum and maximum dosages, etc. He was at almost minimal dosages. His Morphine was increased one time {doubled} and was still far below and danger levels or maximums. How meds are given has changed and thus smaller doses get into the blood stream faster and less is needed for treatment. Liquid meds under the tongue is usually the way Hospice does it. I can remember years ago when family members had cancer they had a dozen or more meds {I mean the strong stuff}.
The second time I did Hospice I didn't have to give any pain meds but something mild. Death came 24 hours after coming home.
I'm not a nurse but I was a caregiver 29 years and I have worked in nursing homes {in maintenance}. I've seen people tell workers I'm going home I won't be here when you come in tomorrow. Now other than old age they seemed to be OK and were actually alert and well aware of what was going on even as far as being up walking. Next morning the bed would be empty. Sure enough they passed.
Each person handles pain different. Some scream at a hang nail and some can endure even cancer with minimal meds. The worse thing I witnessed was a poor man who was a Diabetic. He lost his legs and every single night for nearly a year it seems like was yelling in pain. He was in pain. The nurses could not give him anything else for pain because maximum dosages were reached. All anyone could do for the man was pray GOD took him home.
HELL NO, excuse the French please.
What’s really infuriating is that he has a non-cancerous mass that’s causing all of the trouble. There’s no reason he couldn’t have an operation to debulk it. My grandfather did.
In my grandfather’s case, it was terminal pancreatic cancer, but the debulking surgery took the pressure off of his digestive system and greatly improved his comfort and quality of life until the end.
He has a non-cancerous mass. Why does this have to be fatal?
Get him to another hospital ASAP and get him debulking surgery.
DO IT
two words:
christopher reeve
He lived for years on a vent and eventually regained the ability to speak. He became a powerful advocate for the disabled. His life had purpose, although he was on a vent and paralyzed from the neck down.
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