Amen!
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Posted on 08/21/2006 3:43:35 PM PDT by wagglebee
DALLAS, Texas, August 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The children of a comatose woman are challenging in court the “compassionate reasons” for a Texas hospital’s decision to remove their mother’s life-saving treatment, asserting that their mother, a devout Baptist woman, never would consent to anyone but God ending her life.
On August 8, just days after 61-year-old Ruthie Webster's insurance stopped full coverage of her long-term care, the Regency Hospital’s bioethics committee in North Dallas, Texas, unanimously told the Webster family that they would discontinue life-preserving dialysis treatment for their mother within 10 days. The hospital claimed that Ruthie Webster's physician "has seen no appreciable change in your mother's medical condition" and that continued treatment was an exercise in futility.
The decision shocked family members, since their mother is not brain-dead, but comatose, and has been making slow progress, breathing now on her own without a ventilator, ever since she suffered a bad reaction after undergoing kidney dialysis in June rendering her mostly unresponsive. The family, however, has said their mother told them to take care of her in such a situation, saying that she believes only God has the right to take life away.
"My mom spent her life in the church. She always felt like, 'Who are we to decide? God decides,'” said Lacresia Webster on Thursday. "If this is the way she's going to be, she's still my mom. I'm not giving up on her."
However, the Regency Hospital board defends its decision citing a 1999 statute in Texas' Health and Safety Code that gives a hospital’s ethics committee the last word about continuing a patient's care. Under the law, if the ethics committee decides to end a patient’s medical care, including life-saving treatment, a family has only 10 days to transfer to another medical facility that will care for the patient.
Although Regency has offered to help find another medical facility for Ruthie Webster in Atlanta or Indiana, the family does not want to move their mother, unless they can help it.
"I find it hard to believe this is a law, because you're basically saying if this person is a burden to someone, let's just kill them, and that's unacceptable," Lacresia Webster told Dallas’s NBC 5.
"When God is ready for her, God will take her, not anyone else," Lacresia Webster vowed.
Intent on keeping this vow, Lacresia and her family have enlisted the aid of pro-bono attorneys who have filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott challenging the constitutionality of the state's “end-of-life” law. The family then won a temporary restraining order imposed on Regency Hospital to keep Ruthie Webster alive there until a hearing set for August 28.
Robert Bennet, a lawyer for the Websters said the law “allows a doctor to completely ignore what I’ve told them I wanted to do.” He added, “Mrs. Webster was a Baptist. She told her daughters very clearly that God would take her when it's her time to go. This statute violates her freedom of religion."
"My mother, she's breathing on her own, just like you and I are today," said Helena Webster Hill, who lives in Atlanta. "As long as she's fighting to live, we believe we ought to stand with her and fight with her."
Amen!
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"Mom!" Shakes Ruthie. "Mom, wake up! The insurance has run out and the hospital expects us kids to take care of you. Mom, wake up dammit!" Shakes Ruthie again.
The article does not say of the staff had been pushing to unplug Ruthie before the insurance ran out.....maybe they had, and the lack of insurace is now a lever to move the situation on.
At the risk of getting flamed, the article seems to indicate mom has been out of it for 60 to 90 days. If they do unplug mom, the Lord will take her for sure.....
all I did was state fact as stated in the article..they kept her alive and once the money ran out, they decided to stop treatment
WOW is all I can say! This woman isn't even brain dead and they want to kill her. Gee, this sounds famaliar!
Imagine that - the $$ runs out and THEN the committee meets to decide what to do ...
Brace yourself for the pro-death crowd.
They should be arriving here any minute.
Hospitals are prohibited by law from withholding routine care (in this case dialysis) to an admitted patient. Plus, it is entirely possible that it was the hospital's negligence that caused her condition.
Might I suggest a transfer to a Baptist Hospital... or a Catholic Hospital. I have got to believe that one of these institutions would take on the case if, as it appears, insurance is the driving factor in this decision.
Yet the Culture of Death wants to superimpose their twisted agenda over God's Will.
God's will apparently includes machinery!
Probably no one's. People have bad things happen to them, and most of them are not the doctor's fault.
Although Regency has offered to help find another medical facility for Ruthie Webster in Atlanta or Indiana, the family does not want to move their mother, unless they can help it. "
Has the family offered to pay for continued care at Regency?
"People have bad things happen to them, and most of them are not the doctor's fault."
Yeah, like a few months ago when Kaiser clinic's doctor and nurse overdid the morphine on my Mom to the degree that it almost killed her - all during a routine colonoscopy! Then they all tried to act like it was just an "allergic reaction". That was until they had to admit her to the hospital and the admitting physician made it pretty clear that they were idiots. No I guess bad things just "happen".
TEXAS' FUTURE CARE LAW SUCKS. (there's no polite way to describe it).
http://www.terrisfight.org
Help TSSF establish safe houses all over the United States so that disabled people won't have to worry about being killed by state sponsored homicide.
Sad very sad.
The bottom line is more important than a flat line.
No. The family believes the money to care for their mother will appear out of thin air. They are unwilling to transfer her to a hospital that will care for her, gratis.
They should just call this a post-delivery abortion. After all, most of the women who choose to kill their unborn babies are just trying to avoid the "burden" of motherhood.
Right. Like T'wit was saying the other day, charity is the only solution for this type of stuff.
Here we go again with Texas and its horrible law. One way or another--legislative or judicial--this law needs to be overturned!
You simply must cease this habit of pointing out the facts.
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