Mother fights hospital to keep baby on life support (Terri's Legacy)

KTEN.com ^ | June 1, 2006 | Associated Press

[8mmMauser]

DALLAS A mother fighting to keep her baby on life support, despite a hospital's determination that her efforts would be futile, will get two more weeks to find a facility that will take the 10-month-old. A judge had been set to decide tomorrow whether to grant a temporary injunction to stop Children's Medical Center in Dallas from removing Daniel Wayne Cullen the Second from life support. But attorneys for the boy's mother and the hospital agreed yesterday to extend a temporary restraining order for another two weeks.

Attorney Brian Potts, who represents the boy's mother, Dixie Belcher, said he plans to submit the agreement to a judge today.

The baby has had breathing problems since his premature birth and was hospitalized after suffering from a lack of oxygen when he pulled out a breathing tube. He remains on a ventilator.

[sinkspur]

The Pope who died just after Terri thought snuffing people like that was bad. Don't you?

The child will not starve. He will die without the ventilator long before any effects from removing the feeding tube would be felt.

Look up "extraordinary means of life support" in the Catechism. Families and hospitals are under no moral obligation to use extraordinary means to maintain life, and a ventilator is an extraordinary means of life support.

The Church does NOT teach that human life must be maintained at all costs.

[8mmMauser]

Take your pro-death badgering devil's advocacy to someone who cares.

I will not respond further to your baiting. I will not engage in debate designed to attack. I have watched you for too long and am aware of your techinques. But I will ask this:

Are you really a deacon?

[Alberta's Child]

From a medical/ethical standpoint, the difference between removing a feeding tube and shutting off a ventilator is enormous. A person who cannot breathe on his own effectively dies of natural causes, while someone who relies on assistance for feeding/hydration does not. When a hospital removes a feeding tube, they've basically decided to kill the patient as opposed to letting the patient die.

[Xenalyte]

Let's make sure I have this straight.

She doesn't want to unplug her son, who's in state custody due to allegations of neglect.

Her son "responds only to her," according to the mother, and not to any medical personnel.

She already unplugged a daughter years ago for the same problem.

Neglectful mother who tests positive for drug use (and claims not to know her joint was coke-laced - BS!), filthy and dangerous living conditions (including smoking around oxygen equipment), neighborhood allegations of drug dealing, the baby daddy "staying in a motel," two children with the same disorder . . .

Something stinks BADLY about this story.

[BykrBayb]

Hospitals are under no obligation to continue palliative care when there is no hope for recovery.

Your medical advice is almost as trustworthy as your religious guidance, Deacon. Do you even know what palliative care is?

[8mmMauser]

Maybe something does, but I am concerned about the kid about to being snuffed, not the motives of the mom. I just don't like authorities deciding who lives or dies in our America.

[8mmMauser]

Is it a question of whether he is snuffed or how he is snuffed?

[kx9088]

Hospital resources?

[yellowdoghunter]

I saw this story on MSNBC the other day. Very sad, I pray for all involved.

I see the death lovers showed up, good job on ignoring them. Never got an answer on if there is a deacon or a Priest in the house I see.

Anyway, I will continue to pray for all involved. It is a terrible situation.

[sinkspur]

However, euthanasia must be distinguished from the stopping of extraordinary means of health care or other aggressive medical treatment. The patient — or guardian in the case of an unconscious patient — has the right to reject outright or to discontinue those procedures which are extraordinary, no longer correspond to the real situation of the patient, do not offer a proportionate good, do not offer reasonable hope of benefit, impose excessive burdens on the patient and his family, or are simply "heroic." Such a decision is most appropriate when death is clearly imminent and inevitable. Here a person may refuse forms of treatment which at best provide a precarious and burdensome prolonging of life. In these cases, the person would place himself in God's hands and prepare to leave this life, while maintaining ordinary means of health care.

.

[Alberta's Child]

I just don't like authorities deciding who lives or dies in our America.

Then don't go to a hospital . . . it's really that simple.

The moment you put yourself in the hands of someone else to provide -- and pay for -- medical care, you've effectively ceded much of the responsibility and moral authority over what happens to you. I am sure this hospital would be perfectly willing to accommodate the wishes of the mother as far as finding an alternative facility to care for this child. The problem is that a medical facility does not have unlimited resources to care for each and every patient in perpetuity, so very often decisions like this must be made.

For all of the reasons that Sinkspur has outlined in his posts on this thread, the hospital is on solid legal, ethical, and moral grounds in this case.

[BykrBayb]

Okay, you've shown us that you can copy and paste. But do you understand the question, and can you answer it?

[Protagoras]

I just don't like authorities deciding who lives or dies in our America.

In this case, who are the authorities you refer to?

[BykrBayb]

My father-in-law carries an oxygen tank with him. If I take it away, will he die of natural causes?

[Doctor Stochastic]

In cases of futile care, the question of denying the resources to someone who might survive with treatment arises. From the hospital's POV, they may not want to expend resources on a hopless cause and thus keep another from getting help. There's only a finite amount of "care" available, even when President Rodham puts in her Free Universal Medical Care.

[8mmMauser]

The ones who want to kill the kid. I don't quibble on their titles, only on what they want to do.

[Alberta's Child]

It is a question of how this child is going to die. As I said very clearly in my earlier post (but I'll repeat it anyway) . . . If the ventilator is turned off and the child dies, then the child has effectively died of whatever medical condition caused his hospitalization in the first place. If the child were breathing on his own and the feeding tube was removed, then starvation/dehydration -- not the condition that resulted in his hospitalization -- would be the cause of death.

This might sound very subtle, but it represents a huge distinction in medical ethics.

[sinkspur]

Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of the symptoms of a disease or slows its progress rather than providing a cure. It aims at improving quality of life, by reducing or eliminating pain and other physical symptoms, enabling the patient to ease or resolve psychological and spiritual problems, and supporting the partner and family.

An acute care hospital does not provide palliative care. Children's Medical Center is an acute care facility.

Hospice and nursing homes provide palliative care.

[Alberta's Child]

Can he function -- with the assistance of that oxygen tank -- pretty much the same way anyone else would at his age?

[BykrBayb]

Then why allow ventilators to be used at all? Why do we allow patients without brain damage to use a ventilator? That is, after all, where the distinction is being made. The excuse for removing the ventilator is the brain damage.