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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
![](http://www.lifesitenews.com/images/sized/images/news/Nyirahabiyambere_fp-240x161.jpg)
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: WVKayaker; DJ MacWoW
Surely God can use men, but He doesn't have to use feeding tubes. That is just telling God that He doesn't have the power for a miraculous thing to happen. Pray for healing and no tube is needed. Isn;t that a better "witness"? Why bother eating? Why not just pray and expect God to place the food directly in your stomach?
Feeding tubes are not extraordinary measures. Sometimes they're needed just for a period of time to allow someone to heal. Would you deny them that? Or should they starve first?
Isn't showing compassion to those who are unable to care for themselves and ministering to them a better witness than standing by waiting for a miracle while they suffer and starve?
Matthew 25:31-40 31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' 37Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' 40And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'
241
posted on
03/12/2011 9:01:12 PM PST
by
metmom
(Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
To: NoCmpromiz
I can’t tell you the number of people who think they speak for God when talking to someone with a medical condition.
*You’re not healed because you don’t have enough faith.*
*Prove you have enough faith to be healed by stopping and tossing your medicine and God will do it.*
*If you go to doctors, you won’t ever see healing because you’re not trusting God. Just wait on Him for a miracle.*
It’s not like I don’t believe that God can heal. I just don’t believe that everyone who lectures me about my faith is speaking for God. I’m getting pretty sick of all the judgment I’ve been getting heaped on my because I’m still dealing with a lifelong condition and haven’t been healed yet.
I’m not into blackmailing God into forcing His action based on mine. I am not going to hold Him hostage.
242
posted on
03/12/2011 9:09:40 PM PST
by
metmom
(Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
To: RFEngineer; DJ MacWoW
2 Corinthians 8:1-5
1We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, 2for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 3For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, 4begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints 5and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. 6Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. 7But as you excel in everythingin faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you see that you excel in this act of grace also.
243
posted on
03/12/2011 9:12:43 PM PST
by
metmom
(Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
To: metmom
Exactly. Got also gives us reason, and knowledge, and talents, and skills. He wants people to use and develop them.
244
posted on
03/12/2011 9:20:06 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: Gena Bukin
This is different situation. This FR thread below, sounds what you are on about. If this illegal immigrant problem isn’t fixed at all levels, NOTHING will be. “Martin Memorial Center in Stuart, chartered a plane to take Luis Alberto Jimenez back to his native Guatemala. An illegal immigrant, he had cost the hospital more than $1 million after a car accident left him in a coma.” Facing ever-increasing financial losses, Miami-Dade’s struggling Jackson Health System has spent $33 million this year alone on caring for undocumented immigrants.
On a quiet street in northwestern Miami, a Jackson nursing home serves 60 undocumented immigrants — some paralyzed, quite a few on ventilators — costing Miami-Dade taxpayers about $318 a day per patient.
``There’s no way to place them anywhere else,’’ says Armand Gonzalez, administrator of the Jackson Memorial Long-Term Care Center.
The cost of their care is part of the reason why the county’s public hospital system is struggling with growing financial losses that border on the disastrous. Losses are expected to escalate to $168 million next year because of South Florida’s unique problems — high numbers of uninsured and high healthcare costs that keep increasing the ranks of the uninsured.
On the national level, the issue of undocumented immigrants has become politically explosive.
Care costs for undocumented immigrants stack up http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2332523/posts
245
posted on
03/12/2011 9:22:04 PM PST
by
anglian
To: anglian
South Floridas problem is not so ‘unique’ any more is it?
246
posted on
03/12/2011 9:25:52 PM PST
by
anglian
To: RFEngineer
You’re nothing but a tar baby. Dishonest to the bone.
247
posted on
03/12/2011 9:35:24 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: little jeremiah
“Youre nothing but a tar baby”
That’s pretty racist. you should take a break.
To: RFEngineer
LOL! Racist? I hate rabbits? Or Southerners? Or figurines made of tar?
Go drink some beer and get zotted in the morning.
249
posted on
03/12/2011 10:13:45 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: little jeremiah
“LOL! Racist?”
What, no sense of humor? or dost thou protest too much?
You shouldn’t throw insults around if your skin is too thin to take the reply.
You should stick to relevant facts of the thread and dial back the insults - not because I can’t take it, but because you can’t - and it’s boring, and off-topic.
Now returning to the thread.....Are there limits to charity?
To: anglian
“The cost of their care is part of the reason why the countys public hospital system is struggling with growing financial losses that border on the disastrous. Losses are expected to escalate to $168 million next year because of South Floridas unique problems high numbers of uninsured and high healthcare costs that keep increasing the ranks of the uninsured”
Yet so many on this thread will argue that pointing this out is some how not “pro-life”.
They would rather a hospital close, than discuss whether patients who need extreme care and do not pay make the care unavailable to everyone.
Theirs is the Obama plan for limiting healthcare - make it unavailable to many and limited for everyone.
No discussion - only accusations that you want to “kill people because they are poor”.
No discussion, no solutions, only whining about trying to find a way to solve a problem.
To: BykrBayb; A_perfect_lady
252
posted on
03/13/2011 7:17:09 AM PDT
by
cycjec
To: RFEngineer
Spoken like a true troll that has nothing to say.
253
posted on
03/13/2011 8:12:12 AM PDT
by
DJ MacWoW
(America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
To: RFEngineer; wagglebee; metmom; trisham; little jeremiah
Me;
Now whats your opinion on removing sustenance. You: Why would you assume its different from yours?
A typical troll comes on a thread and never gives their opinion but pokes and ridicules others who do. That fits you perfectly.
What is YOUR opinion on feeding people?
254
posted on
03/13/2011 8:58:55 AM PDT
by
DJ MacWoW
(America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
To: DJ MacWoW
The troll keeps asking about the limits of charity falsely claiming that no one has answereed him; at least 3 people have answered him, with some detail.
Yet the scum refuses to give his own POV about anything. I summed up his approach above, 100% troll tactics.
255
posted on
03/13/2011 9:55:51 AM PDT
by
little jeremiah
(Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
To: DJ MacWoW; Admin Moderator
His comment 250# is a bunch of lies, here's one:
No discussion, no solutions, only whining about trying to find a way to solve a problem.
There has been plenty of discussion of alternative methods of caring for people without insurance, ideas to fix waste and fraud, and so on.
I think he should get zotted; he's shamelessly lying, goading, attacking others on false grounds, using all the standard troll methods.
256
posted on
03/13/2011 10:00:52 AM PDT
by
little jeremiah
(Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
To: little jeremiah; RFEngineer; Admin Moderator
using all the standard troll methods. I have talked with this person before and it is their SOP.
257
posted on
03/13/2011 10:26:23 AM PDT
by
DJ MacWoW
(America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
To: DJ MacWoW
“Spoken like a true troll that has nothing to say.”
I suggest you stick to the thread, and stop insulting me. I don’t mind, but you’re getting repetitive.
To: DJ MacWoW
“A typical troll comes on a thread and never gives their opinion but pokes and ridicules others who do. That fits you perfectly.”
Oh, but I did give my opinion. You just don’t like it, or you didn’t bother to read it. Rather than address why or defend your own, you choose instead to insult with no real purpose or effect.
“What is YOUR opinion on feeding people?”
Thank you for trying meaningful dialog for a change.....I assume you are talking about this particular woman and this particular case. The hospital decided on her treatment, they DO have an obligation to continue it. So I think what the hospital did was wrong in removing her feeding tube. I do also realize the problem doesn’t just end there, but there you go.
To: DJ MacWoW
“I have talked with this person before and it is their SOP.”
No, you and I just disagree, and when you throw out insults I sometimes return in kind. Mine are usually more creative than yours and it infuriates you - leading you to - ping the Admin Moderator?
Debate, dialog - every time you’ve tried it, I’ve responded in kind, have I not?
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