One of the things that bothers me most about this case is that Terri being in hospice is a flagrant violation of both state and federal law. Hospice is by law, for the terminally ill. The passage I was going to post on another thread, if I can remember which one it was, is this:
"...And the article stated, "This Spring, the [U.S.] Inspector General issued a "special fraud alert," warning that some hospices are suspected of paying kickbacks to nursing homes in order "to influence the referral of patients." In October, a federal grand jury returned the first hospice fraud indictment by charging a Chicago man with bilking the federal government by collecting more than $10 million in Medicare reimbursements while providing less than $2 million in hospice services to patients." One man, "allegedly paid nursing homes $10 a day for each patient signed up for hospice benefits ***** with the assistance of compliant doctors who certified them as terminally ill without an examination." ...." [I'm wondering if that's how Terri got admitted, which means she was planned to be terminated. I don't know if Terri was put into hospice before or after the original death sentence was handed down. Anyone know?]
I think all Terri's records need to be subpoenaed. They are required to be kept for a period of time. I think it might have been 5 years.
Another interesting passage, and I'm not sure how it relates to Terri:
(j) Standard: Meal service, menu planning, and supervision. The
hospice must--
(1) Serve at least three meals or their equivalent each day at
regular times, with not more than 14 hours between a substantial evening
meal and breakfast;
(2) Procure, store, prepare, distribute, and serve all food under
sanitary conditions;
(3) Have a staff member trained or experienced in food management or
nutrition who is responsible for--
(i) Planning menus that meet the nutritional needs of each patient,
following the orders of the patient's physician and, to the extent
medically possible, the recommended dietary allowances of the Food and
Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, National Academy of
Sciences (Recommended Dietary Allowances (9th ed., 1981) is available
from the Printing and Publications Office, National Academy of Sciences,
Washington, DC 20418); and
[[Page 703]]
Here's the federal law if anyone is interested:
http://www.hospicepatients.org/law.html I think there's a lot of hear-no-evil, see-no-evil going on here.
[I'm wondering if that's how Terri got admitted, which means she was planned to be terminated. I don't know if Terri was put into hospice before or after the original death sentence was handed down. Anyone know?]
I am pretty sure that Terri got admitted to George Felos' hospice in '99. He was still the chairman of the board at the time, I believe, but then stepped down. He began representing Michael sometime in '98. The first death decision was official in '01.
In other words, after Felos started representing Michael, Terri was moved to the Hospice, and proceedings were already underway to have her feeding tube removed. The only way it could be legal to do that was to have her be diagnosed as PVS with no reasonable hope of recovery, at which point she is looked at as terminal. The judge, seeing that everything is in good order, goes ahead with the order to proceed with her "death wish". Aren't they a bunch of smart guys! This is nothing more than pre-meditated murder, IMHO.