Indian Hospital defends disabled woman against author’s call for euthanasia

LifeSiteNews ^ | 2/1/11 | Thaddeus Baklinski

[floriduh voter]

My goodness, I hope they can find a hospital. To not give the child a trach would be barbaric and he would suffocate to death; remember Terri Schiavo was dehydrated to death. IMO, suffocation and dehydration are barbaric and evil (unless someone's stupid enough to sign a Living Will and then God rest their soul - they have no idea the pain they will endure.)

Anybody want to turn into a bloody rock today? That's what dehydration does.

[floriduh voter]

We are the white rose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDk9uzvSalI

[wagglebee]

The culture of death's quest to dehumanize people continues.

Thread by Free ThinkerNY .

Babies who are born at 23 weeks should be left to die, says NHS chief

Babies born after just 23 weeks of pregnancy or earlier should be left to die, a leading NHS official has said.

Dr Daphne Austin said that despite millions being spent on specialised treatments, very few of these children survive as their tiny bodies are too underdeveloped.

She claimed keeping them alive is only ‘prolonging their agony’, and it would be better to invest the money in care for cancer sufferers or the disabled.

Dr Austin, who advises local health trusts how to spend their budgets, said doctors were ‘doing more harm than good by resuscitating 23-weekers’ and that treatments have ‘very marginal benefit’.

The NHS spends around £10million a year resuscitating babies born this early and keeping them alive on incubators and ventilators.

But despite round-the-clock care from teams of experienced doctors and nurses, just 9 per cent leave hospital – the rest die. And only one in 100 grows up without some form of disability. The most common include blindness, deafness and cerebral palsy.

Guidelines state that doctors should not try to resuscitate babies born under 22 weeks, as they are too underdeveloped, but those born between 22 and 25 weeks should routinely be given intensive care.

After advice from doctors, parents should have the final say on what attempts should be made to keep them alive. Almost all are resuscitated as families cling to the hope that they will pull through against the odds.

The legal limit for abortion is 24 weeks. Dr Austin said that the care given to such tiny infants should be weighed up in the same way as the NHS decides whether or not to fund treatment for dying cancer patients.

‘If it was my child, from all the evidence and information that I know, I would not resuscitate,’ she said.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

[wagglebee]

They sound more and more like Nazis every day.

Thread by me.

Pro-abort prof argues babies not ‘persons’ til 18 months, not an ‘offense’ against child to kill it

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 9, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-abortion activists sought, unsuccessfully, to disrupt a debate on abortion at Dalhousie University Tuesday night by ripping down ads, setting off stink-bombs, and covering the ceiling with helium balloons featuring pro-abortion slogans. In the end, they even turned on the pro-abortion speaker.

Representing the pro-life side of the debate was Stephanie Gray, co-founder and executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform. Facing Gray was Dr. Mark Mercer, chairperson of the philosophy department at Halifax’s St. Mary’s University, who has in the past won the ire of pro-abortion activists for defending the rights of pro-lifers to express their opinions on university campuses.

While Gray argued that the unborn should be protected in law because abortion is the violent killing of innocent human life, Mercer argued that there is nothing ethically troubling about abortion, at one point suggesting that a baby isn’t a “person” until around 18 months of age.

The event, which was organized by the new student group Pro-Life at Dal, attracted about 150 students and members of the public.

In her remarks, Gray pointed out that the scientific community is unanimous that life begins at fertilization. At fertilization, she explained, the child “has everything she needs within herself to direct her growth and to move to the next more mature stage of her development.”

Mercer agreed that the unborn are human beings, and that abortion is the deliberate killing of a human being, but argued that the notion of “human being” is not a “morally relevant concept.” Individuals are not special by virtue of their “species membership,” he said, but become “persons” and worthy of protection because they possess certain “ethically salient properties” such as the ability to experience pain or pleasure, self-consciousness, and rationality.

Gray, however, maintained that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights deliberately speaks of ‘human’ and not ‘person’ rights because the powerful have often sought to subjugate or kill the vulnerable by claiming they are not persons. She pointed to examples like the Holocaust and the enslavement of African Americans.

“We have a nasty history as human beings of denying our fellow human beings the right to live because we divorce the concept of human and person as to treat them as two separate things,” she said.

She said the criteria used to define personhood come down to non-essential differences - namely size, level of development, environment, and dependency - and that these criteria are constantly changing for an individual. “Human is an objective term that we can determine scientifically,” she explained. “Person is a philosophical or legal term which has had a changing definition throughout history.”

“Our humanity, our right to life, should be based on that which is unchanging, which is our human nature - rather than that which is changing, which is our functions and abilities,” she added.

Gray argued that all humans carry intrinsic worth because of our common human nature, by which we are “moral, rational agents.” If an individual doesn’t exhibit signs of rationality, such as a developing baby or a disabled person, they nevertheless have the “inherent ability,” even if they don’t have the “current ability.”

“I don’t understand what this thing humanity is or the property of being human,” retorted Mercer, “such that an anancephalic infant is a rational being just as the rest of us. ... Here’s a creature who doesn’t have a capability and yet it’s still in the essence of that creature that it has that capability. That makes no sense to me.”

Gray said, however, “just because some humans are damaged, so to speak, I would say that doesn’t mean that we can end their lives because they’re not as developed or ‘perfect’ as we are.”

According to Mercer, a child likely only gains personhood at around 18 months to two years of age, and he also suggested at one point that adult pigs might be persons. Though he said he couldn’t imagine a reason to justify killing a born child given the availability of adoption, he said upon further questioning that “if the child isn’t a person, it’s not an offense against the child to kill it.”

A principled vegetarian, he agreed that it could be wrong to kill a pig even though he believes it’s acceptable to kill a child in the womb.

Asked by Gray how he justified defining a person based on his list of properties, Mercer responded, “Why should I take humanity to be ... a morally salient property?”

The most vocal pro-abortion voices at the event were obviously displeased with Mercer’s presentation, slamming him in the open forum at the end of the evening. “You didn’t even attempt to make any arguments that would convince anybody of anything,” said one activist. “You did not represent the pro-choice position at all.”

Though inviting them to e-mail him better arguments, Mercer nevertheless defended his view as the only cogent approach. He dismissed arguments based on “women’s struggle for equality” saying that that they fail to address the “moral status of the fetus,” and disagreed with approaches that claim a woman’s “right to choose” outweighs the unborn child’s “right to life,” saying that these only come into conflict in a “narrow range of cases,” such as rape.

Another pro-abortion advocate even suggested that the pro-life group had deliberately brought in a poor representative for their side, while flying Gray in from Calgary. Yet Mercer noted that he has published his arguments in national newspapers, and local pro-life advocates insist he’s been the only one willing to even debate the issue, despite efforts to find a representative through local university pro-abortion groups.

[wagglebee]

This Lenten season is again time for 40 Days for Life.

Thread by Salvation.

40 Days for Life launches record-shattering campaign. March 9 to April 17

40 Days for Life launches record-shattering campaign March 9

The largest ever 40 Days for Life international campaign is on the way! The campaign will run from March 9 to April 17 in 247 cites -- locations from coast to coast in the United States as well as sites in Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, Spain, Georgia, Armenia and Belize.

Momentum is building - and it's on the pro-life side! Click on the map above to see the full list of cities. Then click on the one nearest you to find local information about that campaign -- and sign up on that page for important updates about 40 Days for Life -- both internationally and in your home town.

 

40 Days for Life reaches out at West Coast Walk for Life

40 Days for Life national director David Bereit, along with former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, spoke at the West Coast Walk for Life in San Francisco. The West Coast Walk for Life is a rapidly growing event that attracted a record crowd this year.

Check out this amazing video of David and Abby firing up the audience of 50,000 people.

Video at site: http://40daysforlife.com/about.cfm?selected=welcome

What 40 Days for Life has witnessed (so far!)

	There have now been seven coordinated 40 Days for Life campaigns since 2007. These efforts have mobilized people of faith and conscience in 337 cities across all 50 of the United States plus six Canadian provinces, three Australian states, and communities in Northern Ireland and Denmark.

During these unified efforts, participants witnessed countless blessings from God:

• 1,085 individual campaigns have taken place in 337 cities
• More than 400,000 have joined together in an historic display of unity to pray and fast for an end to abortion
• More than 13,000 church congregations have participated in the 40 Days for Life campaigns
• Reports document 3,599 lives that have been spared from abortion — and those are just the ones we know about
• 43 abortion workers have quit their jobs and walked away from the abortion industry
• Nine abortion facilities completely shut down following local 40 Days for Life campaigns
• Hundreds of women and men have been spared from the tragic effects of abortion, including a lifetime of regrets
• More than 1,200 news stories have been featured in newspapers, magazines, radio shows and TV programs from coast to coast ... and overseas
• Many people with past abortion experiences have stepped forward to begin post-abortion healing and recovery

After so many years of legalized abortion, many people of faith are experiencing a renewed sense of HOPE!

 

Former Planned Parenthood manager tells all in new book

During the 40 Days for Life campaign in the fall of 2009, the director of the Planned Parenthood abortion center in Bryan/College Station, Texas watched an ultrasound abortion. She was stunned. Within a matter of days, Abby Johnson quit her job and went to the local organization that sponsored 40 Days for Life, seeking help.

Abby Johnson now works to end abortion. As part of her effort, she's written a book called Unplanned that unveils the truth about the inner workings of Planned Parenthood.

Abby, along with 40 Days for Life campaign director Shawn Carney, appeared on the Focus on the Family radio program to tell her story. You can listen to this two-part interview online:

Focus on the Family interview Part 1
Focus on the Family interview Part 2

 

Take the leap of faith and get involved with 40 Days for Life

Have you been to pray at a 40 Days for Life vigil yet? You may ask, “What do I do?” or “What sign should I bring?” The answer is simple; the only sign you really need to bring is yourself, for you represent God’s love.

Concern about going to pray at the abortion facility is common — and normal. 40 Days for Life campaign director Shawn Carney shared some thoughts at the national Students for Life conference.

See video at http://40daysforlife.com/about.cfm?selected=welcome

[wagglebee]

Life is NEVER futile.

Thread by me.

Wesley J. Smith: Futile Care: Teenager Forced Off Life Support Survives to Tell the Tale

This would have been a bigger story in the USA where patients still have the right to fight these things.  In New Zealand, doctors forced a badly injured teenager–Kimberly McNeill, center in the photo at left–off of life support.  But contrary to their certainty, she didn’t die.  From the story:

A teenage girl whose life support was switched off by a New Zealand hospital against her family’s wishes defied the odds to recover and returned home this week — walking and talking. Doctors forecasted that Kimberly McNeill, 18, would never recover from her severe injuries and 15 days after being transferred to Auckland City Hospital, authorities turned off the life support machine, the New Zealand Herald reported Sunday. Defying the odds, she pulled through and this week, two months after the wreck, which nearly claimed her life, returned to her parents’ home in Napier, on New Zealand’s North Island, to continue her rehabilitation, Hawkes Bay Today reported.

Note the short time given for the girl to recover! It reminds me of the Haleigh Poutre case in Massachusetts.  She’d be dead now if doctors had had their way in a timely fashion.  She was only saved because the death bureaucratic necessities gave her time to wake up.

This is a warning.  Doctors don’t know everything.  Hospitals are not always right.  Futile care theory not only violates patient autonomy, but it could abandon some–not many, but some–to death when they might otherwise have lived.  And don’t say, “Well, these girl lived, so what’s the harm?”  The harm is that was no thanks to the futilitarians.  Indeed, Kimberly’s life was surely put at greater jeopardy by the futile care imposition, not the other way around.

[wagglebee]

Once again, the culture of death is trying to define food and water as "life support." Thankfully, it looks as thought Rachel Nyirahabiyambere will be spared.

Threads by me.

Immigrant left to die by starvation after Jesuit hospital decides care is too expensive

Rachel Nyirahabiyambere with two of her grandchildren in 2008.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Rwandan immigrant who survived the genocide of 1994 has now had her life cut off by starvation and dehydration, reportedly because a U.S. hospital affiliated with Georgetown University decided that caring for the woman who lost her health insurance was too expensive.

The New York Times reports that Rachel Nyirahabiyambere, a 58-year-old grandmother and refugee from war-torn Rwanda, has been denied food and water since Feb. 19 after her feeding tube was removed.

“It’s all about money,” son Jerome Ndayishimiye, 33, told the Times.

“Now we are powerless spectators, just watching our mother die,” he said. “In our culture, we would never sentence a person to die from hunger.”

Unlike the Terri Schiavo case, every one of Nyirahabiyambere’s family members has been pleading for her right to live. Since last April, Nyirahabiyambere had been severely disabled after suffering a stroke. For eight months, she had been under the care of Georgetown University Hospital, a non-profit entity run by the MedStar Health Corporation and affiliated with the eponymous Catholic university.

But the Times reports that the hospital, frustrated by the woman’s lack of insurance and inability to pay her medical bills, sought a court in Alexandria, Virginia to appoint a guardian for Nyirahabiyambere who would take the grandmother off their hands, on the basis that the family would not make a decision.

The Times reports that Nyirahabiyambere’s sons – immigrants who fled the violence in Rwanda and earned their way from menial jobs to master’s degrees – lost control of their mother’s situation when Judge Nolan B. Dawkins of Alexandria Circuit Court appointed attorney Andrea Sloan as her guardian, despite an apparent conflict of interest: Sloan was the guardian recommended by the attorney for Georgetown University Hospital, even though the family had asked for an independent attorney to represent their mother’s interests.

The Times reports that Sloan then transferred the mother to a nursing home in Millersville, Maryland. The hospital then agreed to pay the costs of nursing home care – but the financial burden assumed by Georgetown University Hospital in that situation was also shortlived. Sloan made arrangements to put Nyirahabiyambere in hospice care and have her feeding tube withdrawn, leaving her to starve to death.

Sloan explained to the Times that the family did not have a right to consume hospital resources that might be allocated to others with better chances of recovery.

“Hospitals cannot afford to allow families the time to work through their grieving process by allowing the relatives to remain hospitalized until the family reaches the acceptance stage, if that ever happens,” Andrea Sloan told the Times in an e-mail. “Generically speaking, what gives any one family or person the right to control so many scarce health care resources in a situation where the prognosis is poor, and to the detriment of others who may actually benefit from them?”

The Times reports that one of Nyirahabiyambere sons protested in a letter to Sloan that “Ending someone’s life by hunger is morally wrong and unrecognized in the culture of the people of Rwanda.”

Sloan, however, responded that she was trying to understand “your culture” and asked flippantly, “Feeding tubes are not part of your culture, are they?”

She said that unless they could prove their mother would like to live “with a feeding tube, in diapers, with no communication with anyone and in a nursing home” that she would not reinstate the feeding tube.

The Times notes that Nyirahabiyambere, the wife of a Baptist minister, came to the United States after surviving the horrors of the Rwandan genocide and violence in refugee camps that divided her family, made her a widow, and forced her to survive in the jungle for a time. Her sons, who became U.S. citizens, brought her to America, where she found work that gave her health care benefits.

Nyirahabiyambere, however, lost her health insurance because she left her job to follow her oldest son to Virginia and help take care of his grandchildren. Generally, U.S. health insurance is employer-based, and not portable for an individual that switches jobs.

Georgetown University Hospital, which says on its website that they provide “physicial and spiritual comfort to patients and families in the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis – care of the person,” declined to tell the Times why they had washed their hands of Nyirahabiyambere’s case and omitted to intervene in Sloan’s course of action.

LifeSiteNews.com contacted the Maryland nursing home Wednesday where Nyirahabiyambere resided, but a spokeswoman said no one would be able to talk about her case, or even confirm if she were alive or dead.

Bobby Schinder of the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network told LSN that he was trying to establish contact with the family, but admitted that at this late stage there might be little that could be done.

____________________________________________________

BREAKING: Feeding tube restored to immigrant woman unable to pay Jesuit hospital

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Rwandan immigrant woman and survivor of the horrors of the 1994 genocide who had her feeding tube removed because a U.S. Catholic-affiliated hospital deemed her care too expensive, apparently will not die of starvation and dehydration thanks to a court order and the efforts of her children.

Rachel Nyirahabiyambere, a 58-year-old grandmother and refugee from war-torn Rwanda, had been denied food and water since Feb. 19 after her feeding tube was removed by order of her court-appointed guardian. Now 21 days later and still alive, another court has ordered Rachel’s feeding tube reinserted at the request of her family’s new legal counsel.

Rachel’s family has sought legal assistance from the Alliance Defense Fund, which has intervened in the case, against Rachel’s court-appointed guardian, who was appointed at the behest of Georgetown University Hospital.

The New York Times first broke the plight of Rachel Nyirahabiyambere, a Rwandan grandmother, who once had to survive in the jungle in order to escape the genocide and later the violence in the refugee camps. Rachel’s sons immigrated to the United States as refugees, where they worked their way up from menial jobs to obtain masters degrees.

Rachel’s sons brought her to the United States, where she found work that gave her health care benefits, but she lost those benefits by leaving her job to follow her oldest son to Virginia and help take care of his grandchildren. Generally, U.S. health insurance is employer-based, and not portable for an individual that switches jobs.

Rachel was thus without insurance when suffered a severely disabling stroke. She was cared for by Georgetown University Hospital without remuneration for eight months, until the hospital convinced a court in December to remove guardianship from the family to a lawyer recommended by the hospital’s attorney.

Andrea Sloan took over as Rachel’s guardian, and removed Rachel to a nursing home in Millersville, Maryland. The Times reported that the hospital then offered to pay for Rachel’s nursing home care, but had never extended this offer to Rachel’s family before Sloan took over as guardian.

Sloan then decided to remove Rachel’s feeding tube on the basis that Rachel was consuming too many health care resources to stay alive.

She explained her reasoning for having the feeding tube removed to the Times in an e-mail: “Generically speaking, what gives any one family or person the right to control so many scarce health care resources in a situation where the prognosis is poor, and to the detriment of others who may actually benefit from them?”

Developing …

____________________________________________________

Wesley J. Smith: Alliance Defense Fund Saves Lives of the Medically Vulnerable

I reported on Friday that Rachael Nyirahaabiyambere was back on a feeding tube by court order. I can now report that the ADF has–once again–leaped into the breach to help a family whose loved one was threatened with dehydration–just as it did in the Jesse Ramirez case.  In doing so, it has attempted to bring a modicum of equal justice to Nyirahabiyambrere and her family in the outrageous dehydration of the African immigrant.  From the story:

A judge ordered Friday that a Rwandan immigrant whose feeding tube was removed three weeks ago against her family’s wishes be given nutrition and hydration immediately. Rachel Nyirahabiyambere, 59, who has been in a vegetative state since suffering a major stroke, lay close to death in a Maryland nursing home early Friday, said her son, Jerome Ndayishimiye. Her family had felt powerless to save her after a court-appointed guardian ordered her feeding tube removed; the guardian, Andrea J. Sloan, believed that Ms. Nyirahabiyambere should be receiving only palliative care because she was “profoundly vegetative” and had no chance of recovery. After The New York Times published an article about her case, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal alliance, petitioned Judge Nolan B. Dawkins of Alexandria Circuit Court on behalf of her children. He ordered her feeding tube reinstated while the legal issues were weighed.

Nyirahabiyambere is near death because she was denied basic sustenance for more than two weeks.  Do that to a dog, and you go to jail.  Do it to someone with a profound cognitive disability, and it is called bioethics.

Moreover, the only reason Sloan was the guardian in the first place was Georgetown University Hospital’s lawsuit that removed decision making authority from Nyirahabiyambere’s blood family.  Moreover, Sloan told the reporter in the original NYT story, that part of her decision  making process involved the cost to society for her ward’s care.  As I pointed out in my original post–that wasn’t her job.  Making matters even more unjust, the family specifically asked the judge in the original guardianship case to appoint a lawyer for their mother–and he refused!

Had justice been done in the first place, Nyirahabiyambere would almost surely not have never been denied sustenance while a real case was litigated in the courts. Instead, she and her family received kangaroo court style justice and the bum’s rush–until the ADF rode to the rescue.

I can also report that the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network has been helpful to the family behind the scenes.

These life and death dramas involving the medically vulnerable are arising with increasing frequency, and certainly not all of them make the news or Secondhand Smoke. In such cases, the ADF and the Schiavo Network are often the advocates of last resort for people whose loved ones are threatened with being discarded.

[wagglebee]

Baby Joseph Updates

I cannot begin to imagine what Baby Joseph's parents are enduring. It appears that there is reason to hope, but, as we learned with Terri, that can change at any moment.

Threads by RedMDer and me.

Father Frank Pavone: Release Baby Joseph's Medical Records!

As I'm sure you know, the now-famous case of Baby Joseph in Canada is becoming critical. He could die in the next couple of weeks if his breathing tube is removed as the hospital and the government intend.

Baby Joseph is only 13 months old and often has difficulty breathing on his own. He needs a procedure called a tracheostomy in order to go home and live under his parents' care. However, the Canadian health care system is refusing to let the family take care of their son -- even though hospitals in the United States have privately said that they would take Joseph in and give him the tracheostomy he needs to survive. U.S. doctors and hospitals who are now familiar with the case are appalled that Baby Joseph hadn't received the tracheostomy 3 or 4 months ago rather than make the baby suffer all this time.

Baby Joseph's parents are pleading with the world for a hospital with the courage to step forward and accept their son for evaluation and treatment. Priests For Life has even agreed to supply medical air transport to and from the facilities. We will support the cost of the hospitalization and after-care including nursing. Home ventilators have also been donated to maintain Baby Joseph if needed.

There are U.S. physicians in Michigan willing to oversee Baby Joseph's outpatient care and assist in weaning him off the home ventilator should it be necessary.

We have yet to find one facility that said it would not perform the tracheostomy on Baby Joseph.

The real problem is that health care providers in the U.S. need Baby Joseph's medical records -- but the Canadian authorities are refusing to release them.

Therefore, I need your help to continue to contact the Canadian authorities so that a proper and humane solution to this problem can be found. We have recently discovered that Canadian law requires the hospital to release these records to Baby Joseph's parents upon request. And to date, they have refused.

This is what is preventing hospitals in the United States from being able to accept Baby Joseph. We need those medical records! And we need them now!

Therefore, I urge you to click here and send an email to the Canadian officials who oversee the London, Ontario hospital requesting that the medical records be released immediately.

We are continuing our search for a hospital in the United States to take Baby Joseph, and they won't do that without the records.

So please send an email to the Canadian authorities -- and at the same time say a strong prayer for Baby Joseph and his parents. Time is running out, so please act now.

Again all you need to do is click on this link and action can be taken in this life-or-death case.

And while you're on your computer, please forward this urgent email to everyone you know, and we may have a strong chance of saving Baby Joseph from a cruel death.

Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director

P.S. There are currently many false reports and rumors in the media that Baby Joseph is in a persistent vegetative state. He's not. He's only 13 months old, and simply isn't getting the care he needs. Any baby would suffer if not given proper care. So please don't listen to the same kind of lies and distortions that caused Terri Schiavo's untimely death.

This is why it so important that the medical records are released so the truth can come out.

___________________________________________________

BREAKING: Baby Joseph’s family to appeal, while U.S. hospitals have agreed to take over care

To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.

LONDON, Ontario, March 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The new Canadian lawyer for dying one-year-old Joseph Maraachli, whose doctors are seeking to remove his ventilator against his parents’ wishes, announced today that the family will take the case to Ontario’s highest court.

“I’ve been retained to file an appeal to the notice of appeal to the decision of the superior court,” Windsor lawyer Claudio Martini, who the family hired over the weekend, told the Windsor Star on Tuesday.  “I will be filing the appeal in the next day or so.”

The Ontario Court of Appeal will be asked to rule on the February 17th decision of Ontario Superior Court Justice Helen Rady, who backed the doctors’ decision to take Joseph off life support.

The family has also retained the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a constitutional law firm, to explore options to get their son medical treatment in the United States. The family hopes to find a hospital to perform a tracheostomy which will allow them to take Joseph home.

Priests for Life has said they have a jet standing by to fly Joseph and his family to a U.S. hospital as soon as possible.  Fr. Frank Pavone, the organization’s national director, revealed Monday that physicians in Michigan have agreed to oversee Joseph’s outpatient care and help wean him off the home ventilator if necessary.  “We have yet to find one facility that said it would not perform the tracheostomy on Baby Joseph,” he said.

“The real problem is that health care providers in the U.S. need Baby Joseph’s medical records - but the Canadian authorities are refusing to release them,” Fr. Pavone said.

Joseph suffers from a severe neurological disorder, but his specific condition remains undiagnosed.  The Maraachli’s daughter Zina died from similar complications eight years ago, but in that case they took her home after doctors performed a tracheostomy.

Dr. Paul Byrne, a fifty-year veteran in the field of neonatology based in Ohio, has said that Joseph should have had a tracheostomy “a long time ago.”  He also insisted that he has never seen a need to remove a child’s ventilator, saying that “if a baby has a disease process that’s so bad that they’re going to die, then they die on the ventilator anyway.”

The family has not requested a home ventilator, though two have been donated.  In Zina’s case, she was taken off the ventilator and lived for 6 months with the family suctioning mucus when necessary.

After the Superior Court ruling, the hospital had appeared set to remove Joseph’s ventilator on February 21st, but that was delayed when their previous lawyer, Mark Handelman, made clear to the family that they could refuse.

Justice Rady’s decision was based on doctors’ testimony that he is in a permanent vegetative state with no brain stem reflex.  But the family has contested that claim, pointing to footage showing him flailing and reacting to tickling.

The hospital is now asking Ontario’s Office of the Public Guardian to intervene and allow them to take Joseph off his ventilator, after the parents have continued to refuse consent.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, has warned that the court decision facilitates a system where doctors are authorized to force life and death decisions on patients.  He has said he believes it is far worse than the “death panels” recently debated in the U.S. as part of the federal health care law.

“It’s the hospitals and the doctors once again usurping their power over the people,” he said.  “That’s what’s happening.  And they have significant power - they have the money and the courts behind them.  It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Over 14,000 people have rallied behind the parents through the Facebook page “Save baby Joseph”.

To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.

Contact Information:

Bonnie Adamson

President and CEO, London Health Sciences Centre
800 Commissioners Road East
London, Ontario Canada N6A 5W9
Phone: 519-685-8462
E-mail: bonnie.adamson@lhsc.on.ca

Dalton McGuinty, Premier
Legislative Building
Queen’s Park

Toronto ON M7A 1A1
Fax: (416) 325-3745
E-mail: Use this form.

Tim Hudak, Opposition Leader
The Ontario PC Party
19 Duncan Street
Suite 401

Toronto, ON M5H 3H1
Phone: 416-861-0020
Toll-free: 1-800-903-6453
Fax: 416-861-9593
Email: tim.hudakco@pc.ola.org

___________________________________________________

Let's acknowledge the plight of baby Joseph

First, kudos to Windsor Star reporter Sonja Puzic for her accurate and sensitive work on keeping Windsorites up-to-date on this heartbreaking story of Baby Joseph Maraachli and his parents.

Thanks as well to Anne Jarvis for her insightful column looking carefully at both sides of a highly controversial issue in the March 4 edition of our newspaper.

It is obvious through media pictures and reporting that little Joseph has had exemplary care given by highly qualified professionals (doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, etc.) in Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre. He appears well nourished, provided with breathing support by ventilator and surrounded by love.

The central issue surrounding the baby's care is the parents desire to bring their baby son back home to die. Media reports have indicated that the parents believe that a tracheotomy would support their infant son's breathing.

This is a surgical procedure that opens the throat into the trachea (breathing tube). A device called a cannula is secured in place to ensure an opening for breathing.

However it does not ensure that normal, spontaneous breathing will occur.

Moe, the baby's father, told me: "Our first child (with the same neurodegenerative disorder) had a tracheotomy and we took care of her at home."

He also stated: "We managed this tracheotomy without a problem or infection for six months prior to her death."

They also were able to suction and maintain the cleanliness of the tubing. Their baby girl died quietly in their arms. They want the same for their infant son.

Unlike their daughter's situation, Baby Joseph's appears more difficult. His breathing has been maintained on a ventilator since October 2010. According to standard procedure, the hospital indicates that attempts at "weaning" Joseph off the ventilator have been made, but were unsuccessful.

This could be due to degen-erative damage to the breathing centre of the brain, a loss of muscle support in the chest wall and/or other complications.

Unfortunately, the baby needs support to breathe by the use of mechanical ventilation. It is highly unlikely that little Joseph could breathe on his own 24 hours a day. Therefore a ventilator is needed whether or not a tracheotomy is done. Having a tracheotomy in place may not keep Baby Joseph breathing on his own.

It would seem to me that undergoing a tracheotomy at this time, would be an additional trauma and burden for Baby Joseph. Experts in the field of ventilatory assistance have provided feedback regarding the tremendous difficulties in attempting to remove longterm ventilation for infants and adults, depending on the underlying disease.

In efforts to bring Baby Joseph home, there have been concerned professionals who have made themselves available to the parents. One item not reported is the existence of two infant, portable respirators for Joseph's use.

Instructions for the parents on how to care for the baby on the portable ventilator would be provided and followed. This would allow the infant to have his breathing supported at home.

At this point, Children's Hospital could bring the infant home with a doctor and nurse present as they have suggested. Baby Joseph could then be switched to the portable ventilator and mom and dad could have their son at home.

Fifty-four years ago, my first son was born with a congenital abnormality that was considered inoperable. Thomas Andrew came home to die. Yes there was agony, but the comfort to me then and even now after all these years, is that he died at home surrounded and supported by a loving, extended family.

So, I hear the heartfelt cries of these grief-struck parents.

As a community, we should be doing everything in our power to acknowledge the plight of Baby Joseph and his family. Let's try to bring him home where he can die with dignity, in the arms of his family.

We would have to recognize and support the multitude of difficulties that his care would entail.

There are answers. The citizens of Windsor always seem to have them when it comes to caring for their own.

Jean Echlin lives in Windsor and is an independent nurse consultant in palliative care and gerontology.

___________________________________________________

Baby Joseph transfer could be imminent

An American hospital has asked to treat Baby Joseph and a transfer was expected to begin as soon as the weekend, The Free Press has learned.

The U.S. hospital, its identity not publicly disclosed, made the request Friday through lawyer Claudio Martini, who represents the parents of the dying Windsor infant who's been at a London hospital since last fall.

"(The American hospital) is ready, able and willing to accept Joseph," Martini said.

Martini said he trusted that London hospital officials were responding in good faith and that a transfer was imminent.

(Excerpt) Read more at lfpress.com ...

"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."

[RedMDer]

FNC just said (Geraldo garbled it) that baby Joseph has been transferred to the US. I’m trying to confirm that.

[Sun]

I just read this on Twitter!

“Baby Joseph Gets Second Chance at U.S. Hospital: http://fxn.ws/eDr6DA “

[Sun]

“EXCLUSIVE: The baby who was hours from being pulled off life support at his Canadian hospital has been rescued by the national director of Priests For Life.

Joseph Maraachli, 13 months old, who is currently kept alive by a respirator and was recently denied a transfer to a Michigan hospital to undergo a tracheotomy, is en route tonight to the U.S. with Fr. Frank Pavone, the director.”

excerpt http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/13/baby-joseph-gets-second-chance-life/

Thank you dear God!

[Sun]

From Father Pavone, on Twitter:

“I am with Baby Joseph right now in the USA in ambulance en route to hospital... He is doing GREAT!”

http://twitter.com/frfrankpavone

[BykrBayb]

This Day in History:
March 18, 2005: Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed.

[wagglebee]

Day One

Congressional Intervention Fails to Spare Terri Schiavo

March 18, 2005, Day 1 of Judge George W. Greer's court ordered death by starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler Schiavo. The next two-weeks, Terri's Network will post stories of the events that occurred on each of those 13 horrific days. We offer this not only in regard for Terri's memory, but as a reminder that at this moment, countless others are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospices, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

From March 18, 2005 (WND) - Doctors removed Terri Schiavo's feeding tube carrying out her estranged husband's requested court order allowing the brain-damaged woman to starve to death over the objections of her parents. Barring an intervention, Terri Schiavo is expected to live another week to 10 days. (continue reading ...)

"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."

[tuckrdout]

I can not bear to remember Terri’s murder. I was deeply affected by it. I did everything I could possibly do, called everyone I could. I fasted and prayed, I protested, held signs, handed out flyers.

I am still sickened at the failure of the authorities to look at the facts of her life, and instead assume the forgone conclusion that Terri was in fact “brain dead” and “would have wanted to die”. They killed an innocent very loved woman because they refused to consider evidence to the contrary of their own bias. No argument against their preconcieved notions could sway the authorities against poor Terri’s death.

I find that a lot in Americans. About many subjects.

It was then that I realised that our nation was lost. No one listens and no one cares about the truth. They are puffed up in their own prideful ideas and the lives of others don’t matter to them. This woman didn’t mean anything to them! She was nothing. It was their ideology which was most important. Well, the Lord WILL judge them for it.

Thank you for your faithfulness in keeping us informed and updated on similar situations. God Bless you.

[tuckrdout]

What?

[wagglebee]

It was then that I realised that our nation was lost.

You are very right.

A nation that allows the murder of the innocent via judicial mandate has lost its moral authority.

[Sun]

It was a dark day in our history.

And this evil continues.

[kalee]

Journalist Pinki Virani
Exactly why is it this woman’s business?

[HungarianGypsy]

Last time I checked, dead people couldn’t eat. If they are putting food in her mouth and she us eating, I am going to assume she’s still alive.