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In Terri Schiavo's case, the majority of people were not aware of all the facts nor the possibility that a conscious human being could be starved and dehydrated to death by a spouse, guardian, court, hospital or simply anyone. Even if one does not want to believe that Terri was conscious, Andrea Clark from Texas cannot be forgotten. She was indeed conscious, but the doctor and hospital felt it was within their rights to deem her futile and pull the plug. Perhaps if her case had been first, Terri would have had a chance.
~Snip~
Jesse Ramirez's family didn't agree with his wife's decision and sought to have his feeding tube replaced. Judge Katz granted the request, appointed a guardian and set up a hearing. This saved Jesse's life! Too bad Katz wasn't also the Schiavo judge. Perhaps the outcome would have been much different. Nevertheless, when did it become acceptable to starve and dehydrate people to death? How can anyone suggest that is a humane thing to do only to non-criminal humans? There is no logic.
The Schiavo and Ramirez cases are very similar in that they show us just how careless we have become with the lives of those who have been injured or fall ill.
The Terri Schiavo case was a wake up call!
Though the snooze button appears to have been hit, with people still under false beliefs that molded their opinions, the Ramirez case is a loud and clear alarm going off! A man with a chance to recover was nearly murdered by a society and its trend to be too ready to give up and pull the plug on others. What does that say about us as a society? Maybe it is time to do some serious soul searching, while we still have souls to search!
Terri Schiavo Case Opened Pandora's Box for Mistreating Disabled Patients
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For several weeks this spring, national attention was focused on a mother's struggle to prevent the Children's Hospital of Austin from withdrawing life support from her infant son. Emilio Gonzales was an 18-month-old boy who had Leigh's disease, a progressive and fatal neurometabolic disorder. He had been on life support in the intensive care unit for 5 months. The hospital had invoked the Texas Advance Directives Act, which authorized it to withdraw life support if an ethics committee had determined that further life support was medically inappropriate and provided the hospital gave the family 10 days' notice and attempted to transfer Emilio to an alternative provider. With the support of lawyers and a coalition of advocacy groups, Ms. Gonzales had successfully obtained extensions of the deadline, but Emilio died before the judge issued a final ruling on the case.
The Gonzales case is the most recent in a series of famous "futility" cases, including those of Helga Wanglie, Baby L, and Baby K. All are stories about families' insisting on the continued use of life-sustaining treatments that physicians consider to be medically inappropriate. Many of these cases are the product of a severe breakdown of trust in the relationship between the clinicians and the patient's family. Even in the best circumstances, physicians often communicate poorly, and this deficiency is exacerbated when the communication must occur across the gaps created by language, class, and culture. Improvement of physicians' communication and conflict-resolution skills would no doubt go a long way toward preventing such cases from occurring.
Tackling Medical Futility in Texas
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