Posted on 01/02/2014 1:08:18 PM PST by Anton.Rutter
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A California hospital is unwilling to allow an outside doctor to fit a 13-year-old declared brain dead after tonsil surgery with the breathing and feeding tubes that would allow her to be safely transferred to another facility, its lawyer said Tuesday.
Children's Hospital Oakland will not permit the procedures to be performed on its premises because Jahi McMath is legally dead in the view of doctors who have examined her, lawyer Douglas Straus wrote in a letter to the girl's family.
"Performing medical procedures on the body of a deceased human being is simply not something Children's Hospital can do or ask its staff to assist in doing," he said.
The refusal appeared to reverse the position articulated Monday by a hospital spokesman. He said the hospital would allow a doctor retained by the family to insert a feeding tube and to replace the oral ventilator keeping Jahi's heart beating with a tracheal tube — surgical procedures that would stabilize Jahi if she is moved to a facility willing to keep caring for her.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Jahi underwent a tonsillectomy and related procedures at Children's Hospital on Dec. 9 to treat sleep apnea. Her family said she went into cardiac arrest after she started coughing up blood in the recovery room.
She was declared brain dead three days later. The hospital then moved to take her off the machines that are keeping her heart and lungs going a few days before Christmas.
Is her father’s name “John Q”?
If they’re concerned about liability I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard for the lawyers to write up a binding waiver.
In all the stories I’ve read and all the TV coverage, the phrase “organ donor” never comes up.
Just say it’s part of her decision to get an abortion.
I guess they don’t want their asses sued off anymore than is necessarily going to happen anyway.
I really do not understand why the hospital is being so Obama-y (substitute word for sh*thead) about this. They are already in deep Obamastuff, and one would think they’d cooperate so as to reduce their upcoming settlement from $1 billion to half that.
That’s a hospital with a heart.
-The girl goes in the hospital for something routine, something goes wrong and they declare her brain dead and want to pull the plug.
-Family keeping hope want to keep her on life support longer so trying to move her and hospital seems to be making it as difficult as they can for them.
Great PR
After all the body chemistries are normalized and the body itself is warm to the point that it looks physiologically normal, the patient is taken off the ventilator. This is called an apnea test. If in 10 minutes there is no respiratory effort, this confirms whole brain death. Additionally, there are reflex tests that ascertain if even the lowest and most primitive part of the brain are working. ICe water is shot into the ears, looking for a response of the eyes (ice calorimetrics).
If the brain does not trigger the most rudimentary of reflexes which is to say to provide oxygenation by breathing, the only think that is happening to this child is that he heart is being kept alive in some bizarre and sick popular play. No doubt the parents are seeking retribution and milking this for all they are worth.
This is absolutely no different than how an organ may be kept alive outside the body by oxygenating it, etc. but it is independent of the body. Sadly, this child is dead, and I support the hospital as a matter of ETHICS for not contributing to this facade any further.
“Her family, citing religious beliefs and the hope that she will pull through, wants to continue life support.”
That one sentence not only sums up the entire story but also defines America under Obama and only the second day of ObamaCare.
The family’s First Amendment Rights of Freedom of Religion are being denied and the girl has fallen victim to an ObamaCare Death Panel.
She’s dead. what do you want them to do?
Somebody help me out here. I thought oral ventilators simply kept the lungs functioning. Is there such thing as an oral ventilator that keeps the heart pumping?
The more of a pain in the @$$ the hospital officials are in this case, the more I am going to side with a generous punitive settlement when the wrongful death case comes to court.
me too
The hospital didn’t do anything wrong. Good luck with that.
It is unethical to molest a dead body in every state int he union.
“If they’re concerned about liability I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard for the lawyers to write up a binding waiver.”
This is probably a macho urination contest more than perceived liability issue. But on the subject of waivers, courts have held that you can’t waive your right to sue.
But they’d be much better off ending this affair sooner rather than later. As their administrator, I’d assist the heck out of anybody who’d get her out of my hospital.
Somebody should have their ass kicked.
“amily keeping hope want to keep her on life support longer so trying to move her and hospital seems to be making it as difficult as they can for them.”
Hospital says they will cooperate when a plan is made and a destination willing to accept. So far there is no plan and no facility named to send the girl to.
Do you know if all those tests were done or is that simply standard procedure?
If her brain is dead, does the body absorb the dead tissue?
If she is brain dead, is it still possible for her to breathe without a ventilator?
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