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BREAKING: Feeding tube restored to immigrant woman unable to pay Jesuit hospital
LifeSiteNews ^
| 3/11/11
| Peter Smith
Posted on 03/11/2011 3:23:18 PM PST by wagglebee
Rachel Nyirahabiyambere and one of her grandchildren.
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 Rachels feeding tube reinserted at the request of her familys new legal counsel.
Rachels family has sought legal assistance from the Alliance Defense Fund, which has intervened in the case, against Rachels 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. Rachels sons immigrated to the United States as refugees, where they worked their way up from menial jobs to obtain masters degrees.
Rachels 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 hospitals attorney.
Andrea Sloan took over as Rachels guardian, and removed Rachel to a nursing home in Millersville, Maryland. The Times reported that the hospital then offered to pay for Rachels nursing home care, but had never extended this offer to Rachels family before Sloan took over as guardian.
Sloan then decided to remove Rachels 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
TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aliens; concerntrolls; euthanasia; feedingtube; immigration; moralabsolutes; nyirahabiyambere; onlyforaliens; prolife; refugees; rwanda; terrischiavo; terryschivo
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To: RFEngineer
This thread is about the right to life. You have made your "concern" very clear. To the point of obsession. To the point that even after your "concern" has been addressed and answered, you continue to voice your "concern."
Are there limits to charity? Clearly, for some, there are very strict limits.
141
posted on
03/12/2011 7:06:49 AM PST
by
BykrBayb
(Somewhere, my flower is there. ~ Þ)
To: La Lydia
Right. You’re on our side. You shout your disdain for people based on disabilities, and insult people for standing up for the right to life, but that’s just your endearing way of opening up, so we can see you’re only human. You really don’t mean any of it. You’re as pro-life as they come, but you have “concerns.” Uh huh.
142
posted on
03/12/2011 7:11:14 AM PST
by
BykrBayb
(Somewhere, my flower is there. ~ Þ)
To: BykrBayb
You have no arguments, no proofs, only more fantasy and lies. You think you’re a mind reader, and you have no coherent thoughts. Uh huh. Ridiculous. Pathetic.
To: La Lydia; BykrBayb
Post
54 :
I am so sorry your disease has made you disagreeable and unable to grasp simple concepts. Post 130 : Poor ol' Lastchance didn't bother to read what I wrote, either. He just immediately went into self-pity mode
You ridicule someone who admits to having MS and then claim innocence. You are a nasty piece of work.
144
posted on
03/12/2011 7:43:01 AM PST
by
DJ MacWoW
(America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
To: La Lydia
Sorry yes I believe you do favor the death of this woman. I don’t claim you overtly favor it. You favor it because the primary issue for you is one of payment. We do not know the family circumstances. We do not know what payment was demanded from the hospital. We do not know if the family attempted to make arrangements. Your concern was not on the action that would cause this woman’d death but on the inaction of the hospital being compensated. (Which by the way no one has said they should provide service for free.)
What we do know is that care for for this stroke victim cost lost of money. Though the cost of providing hydration and nutrition is certainly not extraordinary in terms of ethics or budget. Now the reason the guardian withdraw the nutrition and hydration was very simple she thought the woman was taking away valuable health care resources from another theoretical patient. Keep in mind we are not talking about someone who is brain dead and being kept alive by artificial means. This woman decided on her own that any and I emphasize any care to this woman would be futile care.
What makes it futile? Could it be because the woman is now disabled and her quality of life is severly impacted? Do you know that is a favorite argument of those who support death panels and the philosophy behind them? Did you know that the disabled are most vulnerable to such actions? Did you know that disability rights groups filed Amicus Briefs in the Terri Schiavo case just for that reason?
Disabled people do take up more health care resources. We often can not afford private insurace. I self ration a lot of care. I do not receive MS inteferon drugs both because of bad reactions and because of the high cost. I have rejected certain treatments because the cost is too high. Even with the pittance Medicare reimburses the cost is too high. Look up Tysarbi costs. Now say I am in this woman’s position. I stroke out. Do you think in the hands of an guardian such as she has I would have any chance of receiving even hydration and nutrition? The answser is no.
We are told to have a health care surrogate but that did not help this lady as the hospital (I think it was they) took away the family’s power to make medical decision for their mom. She would not be in the position she is in if the court had not appointed this current guardian.
There is no reason that the hospital could not have pursued all options available to them to collect payment even going to court. That is their legal right The family could declare bankruptcy if they truly can not pay.
It is not self pity to point out that under your guidelines, money first life giving care second, I would be more vulnerable to a decision that would end in my death.
The woman in the article is certainly going to die if food and water is not restored to her. That must basic of care should not be debatable when their is no medical reason to believe such care is not futile. Futile as in the patient is truly terminal and food and nutrition is now a burden to her organ systems and her body is unable to process the same.
By the way cupcake I am a she.
145
posted on
03/12/2011 8:04:49 AM PST
by
lastchance
(Hug your babies.)
To: La Lydia; metmom; BykrBayb; wagglebee; DJ MacWoW
who, after all, is vicious and nasty?
To: lastchance
I am so sorry your disease has made you disagreeable and unable to grasp simple concepts.
54 posted on March 11, 2011 8:17:51 PM EST by La Lydia
*****************************************
Perhaps the above might be a clue for you.
146
posted on
03/12/2011 9:09:19 AM PST
by
trisham
(Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
To: lastchance
I’m sorry, I should have pinged you to my post #146.
147
posted on
03/12/2011 9:12:27 AM PST
by
trisham
(Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
To: trisham
148
posted on
03/12/2011 9:16:49 AM PST
by
lastchance
(Hug your babies.)
To: mewykwistmas
prolife is expensive.In cases like this it's very expensive which begs the question; who should pay the bill?
To: wagglebee
150
posted on
03/12/2011 10:41:20 AM PST
by
Lesforlife
(Fighting to end abortion in my lifetime!)
To: RFEngineer
What is really at issue is that this woman is directly affected, while the folks that die because a hospital is bankrupted and is not available to a person in needYours was a well-articulated, intelligent post posing difficult questions that have yet to be answered.
Since this thread was posted last night there's been perhaps a thousand patients at hospitals across the country whose life support machines were turned off after decisions regarding their prognosis were weighed against financial concerns as well as the need of others for these expensive and very limited in availability life-supporting machines.
There's been perhaps another thousand patients who died last night because a life support machine was not available to them. It was either being used by another patient, having periodic maintenance being performed on it or in a state of disrepair and awaiting the funding needed to get it fixed.
Finally, there's most likely countless patients whose lives depend on one of these life support machines becoming quickly available and who will die if one doesn't.
Hard decisions must be made. These machines are very expensive and there's more people who need them than there are machines available to use. That's an ugly truth but a truth nonetheless.
To: BykrBayb
“This thread is about the right to life”
As is my question. Despite your protestations, you continue to refuse to answer the question asked, you rather choose to personalize it and turn it into a question that makes you feel personally and morally superior.
Maybe you are morally superior, I don’t know, (except for that honesty problem you have).
The question remains:
Are there limits to charity? Should there be?
To: RFEngineer; La Lydia; Gena Bukin; wagglebee; Lesforlife; metmom; DJ MacWoW; little jeremiah; ...
153
posted on
03/12/2011 2:09:34 PM PST
by
BykrBayb
(Somewhere, my flower is there. ~ Þ)
To: Gena Bukin; BykrBayb; Dr. Brian Kopp; trisham; DJ MacWoW; little jeremiah; Coleus; narses; ...
Finally, there's most likely countless patients whose lives depend on one of these life support machines becoming quickly available and who will die if one doesn't. First of all, we are talking about a FEEDING TUBE, not life support.
Feeding tubes have been used with varying degrees of success for over FOUR HUNDRED YEARS. The early problems with them are entirely due to not having modern plastics to use and infections which are now irrelevant due to common antibiotics.
There is NO SHORTAGE of feeding tubes.
Hard decisions must be made. These machines are very expensive and there's more people who need them than there are machines available to use. That's an ugly truth but a truth nonetheless.
Actually, this isn't true at all. Feeding tubes are inexpensive to produce and cost about $700 a week to use.
You may not realize it, actually you almost certainly do, but you are pushing rationing and death panels. Your position is EXACTLY THE SAME AS OBAMA'S.
154
posted on
03/12/2011 2:24:58 PM PST
by
wagglebee
("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
To: wagglebee
To: RFEngineer; BykrBayb; Dr. Brian Kopp; trisham; DJ MacWoW; little jeremiah; Coleus; narses; ...
Are there limits to charity? Should there be? Unbelievable, I never thought I would see someone who claimed to be a conservative, or even a libertarian, suggesting that CHARITY should be limited.
156
posted on
03/12/2011 2:28:04 PM PST
by
wagglebee
("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
To: RnMomof7
We're basically talking about a few feet of tube, a pump and baby formula.
157
posted on
03/12/2011 2:32:34 PM PST
by
wagglebee
("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
To: wagglebee; RFEngineer; BykrBayb; little jeremiah; lastchance; DJ MacWoW
Are there limits to charity? Should there be?***************************************
Devil's advocate? How many times have we seen this method used to advance an agenda?
158
posted on
03/12/2011 2:38:14 PM PST
by
trisham
(Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
To: RFEngineer; BykrBayb
Are there limits to charity? Should there be?Maybe 0h0m0 should appoint a Limits to Charity Czar, sounds like you're the man for the job.
159
posted on
03/12/2011 2:46:05 PM PST
by
little jeremiah
(Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
To: trisham
I don’t know why anyone wants to be a devil’s advocate; sounds like choosing the wrong team!
160
posted on
03/12/2011 2:48:09 PM PST
by
little jeremiah
(Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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