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To: Hildy
Well, Hildy, one person on here agrees with you. I work with sick and dying children every day. Currently we are caring for a child with a degenerative neurological disease that can only lead to any early death. All of this childs muscles are slowly wasting away. When it became impossible for the child to eat, she was subjected to surgery to place a gastric tube. Now she is losing control of muscles that coordinate breathing and swallowing. The next step is to place a tracheostomy. The family has consistently been unable to care for her at home. She recently spent over three months at the hospital only because there were issues regarding who would care for here when she leaves. She has no control over her body at all. She has no purposeful movements. She has no hope for a “recovery”. This condition will only get worse, and she will eventually die. The staff members have tried to explain this to the family (the ones who leave her alone at a hospital for months at a time because they don’t want to care for her - and, yes, she is on Medicaid) to no avail. They want us to continue to provide care for her forever. Once she is trached, she will probably never go home, and will be one of the numerous kids that live at the hospital because we have no place to send them. Now, we can keep kids like this alive indefinitely, but should we?
44 posted on 04/09/2007 6:42:36 PM PDT by sunvalley
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To: sunvalley

Oh my gosh. Is the child in pain? I find it impossible to believe that people think this is the humane thing to do...should we, just because we can?


45 posted on 04/09/2007 6:46:30 PM PDT by Hildy ("man's reach exceeds his grasp"? It's a lie: man's grasp exceeds his nerve.)
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