Posted on 12/30/2013 12:15:05 PM PST by Morgana
Children’s Hospital Oakland has a very good reputation where I live in the Bay Area. But its public communication around the tragedy of Jahi McMath’s ”brain death” has been astoundingly insensitive, bordering on arrogant.
The hospital’s statements quoted in today’s San Francisco Chronicle continues the maladroit insensitivity. The hospital states it will remove the ventilator the moment that can be done legally. From the story:
Children’s Hospital Oakland officials confirmed Sunday they will turn off the machines sustaining Jahi McMath’s body as soon as a legal injunction expires at 5 p.m. Monday unless otherwise ordered by a court. “Barring any other court-order legal action by the family, the ventilator will be shut off at 5 p.m. tomorrow,” said hospital spokesman Sam Singer. “It’s tremendously sad, but that’s what’s going to occur.”
Not five minutes after five. Not sometime after five. Not one second after five. At five! I can picture a doctor looking at his watch counting down the seconds, “three, two, one…”.
Then there’s this:
“Children’s Hospital Oakland continues to support the family of Jahi McMath in this time of grief and loss over her death,” the hospital said in a statement Sunday. “We continue to do so despite their lawyer’s criticizing the very hospital that all along has been working hard to be accommodating to this grieving family.”
Gee, that’s big of you. Why have hospital spokespersons acted throughout this sad saga as if the institution is the victim?
I gave another example here the other day, noting that I heard a hospital spokesman on the radio claiming he was “gratified” that the court agreed that Jahi was dead. Gratified?! They should have expresses sorrow that the hospital’s doctors were right. I mean, the “victory” isn’t akin to a judge deciding that their version of a disputed contract clause was correct!
There have been other examples of awful care and handling of the grieving family–such as one doctor “compassionately” telling the family during a meeting that Jahi was, “dead, dead, dead, dead.” From the 12/21/13 Chronicle story:
The ruling comes a day after the girl’s relatives met with hospital officials and said the meeting did not go well. They said a doctor had told them that Jahi is “dead, dead, dead, dead” and that further medical care was no longer needed.
Gee, maybe the doctor could try and understand that a family seeing their beloved girl warm and breathing with a machine, might have a difficult time grasping that clinical determination. Sensitivity, please!
I have covered this story extensively here because of its importance on several levels:
First and foremost is the terrible personal tragedy of a 13-year-old girl going in for minor surgery and dying–illustrating that most medical treatments have potential risks. On the macro level, there is issue of “brain death” being dead, rather than as some misuse the word, unconscious. There is the issue of the distinction between stopping care for a dead patient and forcing the withdrawal of wanted treatment maintaining the life of a living patient because it is supposedly “futile.” (With Obamacare, expect more coercion forcing the sickest patients off of life-extending treatment–not because it isn’t working but because the patient’s life is being maintained when death is what the technocrats want.) There is the exacerbating the distrust minorities have for institutions–and their differing views from the technocracy and general community on fighting death to the bitter end. The way in which hospital spokespersons discussed Jahi’s tragedy publicly also illuminates the arrogance among the technocratic class, who too often lose the forest for the trees when considering how public health policies they advocate impact real families.
So sad. So many lessons to be learned.
The left has obviously looked at this case and decided that it’s not worth the media hype as for Terri Schiavo.
I still haven’t figured out the reason, but it has to be about protecting their precious president.
A miracle for the little girl would be FANTASTIC!! God Bless her
Would also be a added bonus to show Dr`s that they are not infallible, because they don’t understand all of this, “science” is not the be all end all as they think
Another thought that will surely get me some nasty responses, This little girls mom and dad, did they vote for Obama? meaning they have given their OK to gay marriage,abortion and the removal of God`s Word/Name from classroom/public square etc
So now they are calling on God/Christ for a miracle, I hope/pray they get it
Yes its an assumption that they vote Democrat, but its a pretty good bet they do
Would they continue to vote Democrat if they got their miracle?
Really same idea that Sarah Palin put out, People expecting Blessings from God after kicking Him out of society
Apples and oranges. This isn't another Terri Schaivo and it is irresponsible to spin it as such. Schaivo was never brain dead prior to her death from dehydration. She was in a "persistent vegetative state." There's a big difference.
This girl is dead. To quote the doctors, "dead, dead, dead, dead." This is every doctor that has examined her. Her brain is decomposing. The parents are in denial. Their daughter is not coming back to life. They need to let go and bury her with dignity and not try to drum up the media machine and turn this into something it's not.
There's no such thing as routine surgery. Even sometimes the most commonly performed procedures go horribly wrong.
I’ve often wondered why brainwave electrical activity is not the baseline to determine when life begins as well.
Let the parents pay the entire cost or pull the plug!!
Let us proclaim drew68. i wouldnt want to be your daughter.
Just another victim of ObamaCare and there will be many more just like this little girl who will be murdered by the state even though the family is willing to pay all her hospital costs as like as it takes for her to heel an wake up for her current state.
Just this morning, a local news station claimed that the girl had suffered a heart attack during her recovery. I don’t know what to believe. I, for one, would not want my loved one’s business being broadcast on the air between commercials for the Honda Holiday Sale and Flo, the Progressive Lady.
Cause they want her organs.
Medicine used to be about do no harm now its about organ removal and money. That child is costing the hospital alot of money. They won’t even give her a feeding tube so she can be transfered to another hospital willing to take her.
The parents need to drop its lawyers and get new ones who will make this hospital pay big money for medical malpractice.
So sad but yes, money is the root, who will pay is always a factor.
as if no other family ever had to confront the fact that their family member was a living corpse hooked up to a machine
these folks are in deep denial, OK, understandable
BUT at some point the futile effort has to stop. They need counseling, not lawyers
most tonsillectomies these days are prescribed due to apnea rather than infection
check it out
Agreed. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are hospital metrics/grading that punishes them for moving people to long term care, so it is better for their status to kill her.
Well said and I agree. She is already gone.
I don’t doubt that may be true, but I will bet most of that apnea is weight related, and the “cut/poison/burn” approach, (to cop a Savage term) definitely is most unhealthy route to cure it in that instance from an overall health standpoint.
“Let us proclaim drew68. i wouldnt want to be your daughter.”
So, what would you do in this case?
She’s dead, Jim.
“If I’m brain dead then let my body go, for I am already gone.”
Absolutely. If there is no chance of recovery and you can’t live on your own I don’t see why you would keep a body alive. Of course there’s always the question of who decides if there’s a chance of recovery.
If I don’t trust a doctor to make the recommendation on whether my child is still alive I would find a different doctor immediately.
Are you that sure that nobody has ever come back from this exact thing?
Miracles are always possible. I am sure that people have come back from this very thing
Just off top of my head, Lazarus I believed was brain dead
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