Posted on 08/21/2006 3:43:35 PM PDT by wagglebee
DALLAS, Texas, August 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The children of a comatose woman are challenging in court the “compassionate reasons” for a Texas hospital’s decision to remove their mother’s life-saving treatment, asserting that their mother, a devout Baptist woman, never would consent to anyone but God ending her life.
On August 8, just days after 61-year-old Ruthie Webster's insurance stopped full coverage of her long-term care, the Regency Hospital’s bioethics committee in North Dallas, Texas, unanimously told the Webster family that they would discontinue life-preserving dialysis treatment for their mother within 10 days. The hospital claimed that Ruthie Webster's physician "has seen no appreciable change in your mother's medical condition" and that continued treatment was an exercise in futility.
The decision shocked family members, since their mother is not brain-dead, but comatose, and has been making slow progress, breathing now on her own without a ventilator, ever since she suffered a bad reaction after undergoing kidney dialysis in June rendering her mostly unresponsive. The family, however, has said their mother told them to take care of her in such a situation, saying that she believes only God has the right to take life away.
"My mom spent her life in the church. She always felt like, 'Who are we to decide? God decides,'” said Lacresia Webster on Thursday. "If this is the way she's going to be, she's still my mom. I'm not giving up on her."
However, the Regency Hospital board defends its decision citing a 1999 statute in Texas' Health and Safety Code that gives a hospital’s ethics committee the last word about continuing a patient's care. Under the law, if the ethics committee decides to end a patient’s medical care, including life-saving treatment, a family has only 10 days to transfer to another medical facility that will care for the patient.
Although Regency has offered to help find another medical facility for Ruthie Webster in Atlanta or Indiana, the family does not want to move their mother, unless they can help it.
"I find it hard to believe this is a law, because you're basically saying if this person is a burden to someone, let's just kill them, and that's unacceptable," Lacresia Webster told Dallas’s NBC 5.
"When God is ready for her, God will take her, not anyone else," Lacresia Webster vowed.
Intent on keeping this vow, Lacresia and her family have enlisted the aid of pro-bono attorneys who have filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott challenging the constitutionality of the state's “end-of-life” law. The family then won a temporary restraining order imposed on Regency Hospital to keep Ruthie Webster alive there until a hearing set for August 28.
Robert Bennet, a lawyer for the Websters said the law “allows a doctor to completely ignore what I’ve told them I wanted to do.” He added, “Mrs. Webster was a Baptist. She told her daughters very clearly that God would take her when it's her time to go. This statute violates her freedom of religion."
"My mother, she's breathing on her own, just like you and I are today," said Helena Webster Hill, who lives in Atlanta. "As long as she's fighting to live, we believe we ought to stand with her and fight with her."
Give me a break. For profit hospitals have been dealing with this forever and they have made money, it is only recently that they have sought ways to avoid their duty and make even more money.
That holds true for non-profits true. Non-profits actually need to make profit too or they shut their doors.
The problem with all articles on medical issues is that they are always one sided. The hospital and physicians can never come forward and give their side of the situation due to patient confidentiality. We, the reader, are then left to trust the reporter to clearly assess both sides of the issue and present then equally. That is almost impossible since they don't hear they other side in these often complicated cases.
Hmmmmm..... How about God is acting through the Doctors who made the decision. God never acts direct, he always acts through people.
I do feel really awful about Steve Centanni and his cameraman being kidnapped. Journalists who go to war zones are courageous.
The medical profession has long taken this to mean that they were to treat life threatening conditions without regard to financial ability.
It's interesting to note that none of them seems ready to sell all they have and send it to keep the body on a machine! It's all about the gum't.
It's always about money, but the machinery is just another false hope, that apparently most of these "people of faith" have invested theirs into (sic)!
"Surely, you will not die..."
(Scripture quotes available for research!)
Regency is discontinuing care as a way to get the kids to move mama to a long-term care facility. Regency is acute care.
Hospitals do not make money on patients who do not have insurance or have no other source for remuneration. They were able to get away with it in the past due to their willingness to jack up prices across the board, thus causing you and me to subsidize the costs of others. Or, rather, to have our insurance companies subsidize those costs.
Insurance companies are now less willing to do that. Hospitals have to deal with the current environment.
What's wrong with transferring her to a hospital that will take her?
Unless of course you count the Flood, parting the Red Sea, carving His Law on stone tablets, the Virgin Birth, raising Lazarus, the Resurrection and a host of other things.
Indeed the nature of these decisions is troubling, that is why committees to determine what is ethical and what is not exist. But the bottom line is this hospital has made a determination that it cannot continue to support any and all indigent people in their hospital indefinately and continue to meet the needs of the rest of their patients. Hospitalization of comatose people is EXPENSIVE. That there are places who do take indigent, comatose patients is commendable, but we should never require it of private hospitals who have a right to be paid. They've offered to foot the bill for her transfer. These people refuse to take it. It's sad, but they don't have the right to free treatment, any more than you or I do.
We have to keep clear headed on these things. There is a small but very loud group on this forum who have out-shouted every reasonable debate on these subjects since the Terri debacle. Don't let them turn every medical case into the next Terri.
Forget it. You are talking to folks who think it was illegal for Terri to have a sip of water, or even a ice chip on her parced lips while dying.
Trust me, I know that only too well!
That's the bottom line, isn't it? Hopeless case is defined as "your money ran out".
Make sure you have set up a Living Will/ Health care Power of Attorney.
You can get one at legalzoom.com for about $69.
I have a living will, power of attorney and advance medical directives, they are all very specific.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.The medical profession has long taken this to mean that they were to treat life threatening conditions without regard to financial ability.
I would interpret it another way... that the medical profession is not disregarding economic considerations at all! But rather openly and honestly acknowledging that there are very serious economic considerations for any family who has a family member in serious and expensive long term care. To treat decisions as if they have no impact on the family's or society's economic stability would be extremely myopic.
And this part means what, do you think?
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
"On August 8, just days after 61-year-old Ruthie Webster's insurance stopped full coverage of her long-term care, the Regency Hospital’s bioethics committee in North Dallas, Texas, unanimously told the Webster family that they would discontinue life-preserving dialysis treatment for their mother within 10 days."
I suspect this statement is misleading. They most probably told the family the hospital would not continue the FREE treatment they have been giving since 8/8.
Ms. Webster's insurance was inadequate to cover her wishes - we all have that problem, & I don't see here where the family is pulling out the checkbook. If the family or her church wont take responsibility, why should the hospital?
"The family, however, has said their mother told them to take care of her in such a situation, saying that she believes only God has the right to take life away."
My mom was a devote Baptist for 89 years, yet she would have never allowed her family to impoverish itself or impose on others to sustain her life. She was never about getting something for nothing, or taking what was not hers.
I understand the anguish these folks are going thru, but trying to force the hospital to continue her treatment indefinitely by lawyering-up seems the wrong way.
Where is the church? Where are the donations, bake sales, church suppers, etc. that could raise money to help this lady? The hospital has generously donated to Mrs. Webster's health/welfare up to now. Others need to step up.
Dialysis SUSTAINS life, but does not CURE anything. The closest thing to a "cure" when you have kidney failure is a kidney transplant; given the fact that she is in a coma, I highly doubt she is eligible to be on the transplant list to receive an organ from a cadaver.
anyone remember that article??
IIRC, I was the one who posted it, I just don't remember the title. I'll see what I can do.
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