The appeals court DENIED the request to re-insert Terri's feeding tube. Damn them all.
Thousands of others have starved or thirsted and survived in an epidemic so widespread that nearly a quarter of the nursing home patients wheeled into hospitals for treatment each year show up malnourished or dehydrated, according to hospital records.
These conditions can undermine even the most advanced medical care by destroying the body's ability to fight off other illnesses.
"There's no reason for anybody to die from dehydration, especially in a nursing home. No reason but gross neglect," said Caryl Conway, a former nurse whose grandmother, Arcenia Magee, died from dehydration after a year in a Detroit nursing home.
Relatives contend Magee would have survived had her caretakers noticed sooner how dehydrated she had become.
But by the time Magee, 85, was admitted to Providence Hospital in Southfield in the summer of 1999, doctors calculated her body was missing 9 liters of water -- about 2 1/2 gallons -- and had begun to simply shut down, court records show.
The next night, Magee died from dehydration
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Since 1987, federal law has specifically required nursing homes to head off malnutrition and dehydration. Homes must closely monitor a patient's condition and ensure those who cannot eat on their own get enough help.
http://www.detnews.com/2004/specialreport/0411/30/A01-17436.htm