Posted on 03/19/2019 3:44:04 PM PDT by markomalley
A contentious battle is taking place at this courthouse in downtown Houston, Texas over a law that gives hospitals virtually unlimited power to decide the fate of patients.
Oral arguments took place centering on the question whether the law, called the Texas Advance Directives Act — or TADA for short — violates patients' constitutional rights by depriving them of due process.
Texas Right to Life has led the vanguard in opposing this law.
Incredibly enough, their main opposition is none other than the Texas Catholic bishops, who argue the law comports with Catholic teaching. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed last year, the bishops stated, "Human intervention that would deliberately cause, hasten, or unnecessarily prolong the patient's death violates the dignity of the human person" (emphasis added by bishops).
But critics say the law isn't about needlessly prolonging death; rather, it's about depriving a patient of life and hastening his death.
The Texas Advanced Directives Act came to national prominence in 2015 in the case of Chris Dunn, a former EMT and Homeland Security employee who checked in to Houston's Methodist Hospital in October 2015 suffering from a mass on his pancreas and renal failure.
His doctor determined his "quality of life" warranted no further medical care, and the hospital's ethics panel agreed — against the wishes of Dunn himself, who was conscious, alert, responsive and made clear he wanted to live. A 2015 video shows Dunn practically begging to be kept alive.
Dunn's mother, Evelyn Kelly, fought the hospital, and with the help of attorneys secured by Texas Right to Life, got an injunction against the order, allowing her son to live another month. He passed away peacefully and from natural causes two days before Christmas.
His mother sued the hospital arguing that the Texas Advanced Directives Act is unconstitutional.
The law gives hospital ethics panels enormous power with practically no oversight. Whatever decisions the panel makes with regard to a patient, that decision is final. There is no appeal, no review by any court.
Plus, there's a loophole. You don't have to be terminally ill for a hospital to decide you should no longer live.
And the reasoning behind their decisions remains vague and unclear. A doctor makes the determination that the patient's so-called quality of life does not meet the threshold for continued care, but "quality of life" is subjective, it's amorphous and it differs from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital
Another concern: The hospital is supposed to decide what's in the best interest of the patient, but too often these panels are made up of hospital staff, giving rise to a conflict of interest. Hospitals know it costs them many thousands of dollars a day to keep uninsured patients alive.
Performing a cost-benefit analysis, from a purely financial standpoint, it's always more beneficial to a hospital to hasten the death of uninsured patients rather than shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep them alive.
Critics rightly fear these ethics panels aren't truly interested in the patients' best interests but care more about the bottom line.
Texas Right to Life has led the vanguard in fighting this law, helping more than 400 families find legal recourse or alternate hospitals willing to take sick patients.
But most troubling is the fact that Texas Right to Life — a very large, very Catholic group — has not received the support of the Texas bishops. In fact, last year, the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops conducted an unprecedented attack against the pro-life group, one of their criticisms being that it opposes the Texas Advanced Directives Act.
Currently, no other state in the country has a law that gives such wide-ranging power to hospitals to determine the fate of patients, and critics say what's happening here is no more than creeping involuntary euthanasia. Texas Right to Life is vowing to continue the fight to protect the dignity and value of human life with or without the help of the bishops.
Reporting from Houston, this is Christine Niles for Church Militant.
No, you can't.
40 million is my final offer. In cash. Right now. And I am the only one around.
Are you cool w/me forcing you to stop anyone from bleeding out whom I choose?
I am cool with people getting the emergency medical attention they need from who ever happens to be around.
It is that funny little thing called having a soul.
Perhaps you should read David Hume's "On Sympathy".
You would find it enlightening.
“soul”
Your socialist tendencies are misguided. What are you doing on FR?
The chance that my last days will be spent in the absurd scenario you present is about nil.
The chance that I’ll be dealing w/bureaucrats that want to deny available treatment because it’d be a “poor use of resources” is actually pretty high.
I’m gobsmacked at how Texas has gone to hell lately. I used to think it would be a great place to live. But it appears the death cult people have taken over. No Texas for me.
What I don’t understand is why, when the law specifically prescribes transferring a patient who disagrees with the reviewed decision, did they just not transfer him?
Wasn’t that itself a violation of the law?
I live in Houston and am unfamiliar with this law.
However, what I do know is that the medical profession, and particularly hospitals, have too much legal power. Even if one is admitted to a hospital on someone else’s say so then that patient is, in effect, a prisoner until such time the hospitals and doctors decide if the patient can go home. Any patient who objects and leaves of his own free will then he has left the hospital “AMA, Against Medical Advice!” Translation: ‘”AMA” = We refuse to pay your medical bills’ and you get stuck with the entire tab!
I once called the police to report that I was being held as a captive by a hospital. The copthug showed up and asked the nurse if I was being held against my will. She replied, “ He is a threat to his own life!” He turned and walked away without even asking me any questions! I was a prisoner in that hospital and Big Brother let it happen!
Thank you,now spread the word to all your friends and neighbors.
Things changed with organ transplant and brain death. Beware all.
The Catholic teaching as put forth by JPII on brain death and paraphrased here, is that a person whose ENTIRE brain function is IRREVERSIBLY ceased may be declared dead.
This position often results in under treatment initially upon admission to the hospital or under feeding and hydrating. Such attitudes save money, avoid medicare fines because of excessive re admissions and make more organs available for transplant among other financial motives.
To go further and put treatment decisions in ethics boards or doctors should result in a swastika on the front of the hospital.
Palliative care & hospice.
Worth knowing the difference; the pros and cons.
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-are-palliative-care-and-hospice-care
Been my experience..that we keep them alive as long as possible. $$$$
Baylor killed my father on the final day that his Medicare was going to run out. All this time I thought I should have sued the pants off them for doing so. I wanted to throttle the witch that ran the panel that decided it was time although he showed a marked improvement and his neurologist did not want him moved to palliative care.
Last year I was in an accident with a subdural and subarachnoid hematoma and two brain bleeds. The usual procedure for such things were not followed. Instead of relieving the pressure to my brain, they let my lie there in ICU. They moved me into palliative care after a few days and were shocked that I got better on my own. I did not have insurance. I have since heard a bazillion times from various doctors that it is an absolute miracle that I not only survived, but am not completely disabled. I was given excuses for the reason they did not treat the subdural hematoma such as the hospital was infected with a flesh-eating bacteria that they were afraid would get into my brain if they performed surgery, From reading this article, I think the decision is apparent. “No insurance? Let her die as opposed to spending money in an attempt to save her life. I now see that getting insurance if living in Texas is a necessity.
No insurance. No ability to pay. Serious circling of the drain. Would have been interesting to see if another hospital took him.
Cops and nurses have a special bond. Just FYI.
“Thank you, now spread the word to all your friends and neighbors.”
Why would I want to trade living in a failed state for one that’s just failing. You can put out your quasi-Texas will never go Blue nonsense if you like, but the cold hard fact of the matter, the 2020 election may well be the last one where Texas votes Republican. Because of the massive populations of $hit people in your major cities, you will not long be Red. I had a “chance” to move to Texas in the 1970’s, glad I didn’t. Back then, CA was Redder than Texas has ever been. Besides, I could have bought half the town where I was being offered the job with the proceeds of the sale of my home here. Yup, started out with $6 grand down on a $30 grand home in 1968, one home later we’re in one that appraised last year for $2.1 million, and thanks to Prop 13, is taxed as though it cost about $650,000. CA IS nuts today, but you can still make money here in real estate.
What the WHAT??!!!?
I live in Houston. I cannot believe I’ve never of this law
Sounds like you’re creating Texazuela down there! Everyone speaks Spanish in Texas so the “transition” should go without a hitch. With the unfunded public debt, they are trying to find any way they can to cut costs, even if that means dying a “little early!”
Go here:
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/2019-Financial-State-of-the-Cities-Report—1.pdf
And look at the mess Texas Big Cites are in right now. Dallas is sixth worst in the country. SA, Austin, El Paso , Ft Worth are there too.
Not surprising. Dems have run Texas cities into the ground. Dallas has been a mess at least as long as I have been an adult. I can remember John Wiley Price being in the news even when I was a young adult. It will only get worse.
I currently live in Fort Worth that has long been Conservative until recently. They’ve put in plenty of liberal stores to draw them here and it has been successful. We are now abandoning our beloved neighborhood by the river with a Whole Foods right around the corner to move to a small town in a different county west of here that has an HEB within driving distance. We hope we don’t have to eventually abandon Texas, but I suspect that day is coming. We worry that we may have to abandon the country if Trump can’t get it headed back in the right direction before we retire. We may indeed be speaking Spanish someday.
Never easy to see loved one's go....
That would be loss.....
Thank you. I agree with you. It is never easy.
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