Despite a wave of criticism against the Department of Social Services in the wake of a 4-year-old Hull girl's death, many family-law practitioners who regularly work with the agency say they do not expect DSS lawyers or case workers to change their practices.
Rebecca Riley's recent death from alleged over-medication occurred less than two years after DSS came under fire for its handling of a case in Springfield in which an 11-year-old girl, Haleigh Poutre, was discovered in a coma and presumed dead after reportedly being beaten by her adoptive parents.
While the tragic circumstances of the Riley case put DSS back in the news recently, Boston family lawyer Kevin Patrick Seaver said the negative attention will not have a direct impact on the majority of child welfare cases in Massachusetts.
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Thomas F. Carr, a former DSS intake officer who now testifies as an expert witness in child welfare cases, said he expects to see an increase in the number of children being removed from homes as a result of recent media attention.
"Historically, they always have been reactionary so I don't know why they wouldn't be now," he said. "I think you'll see some workers making cover-your-backside decisions, and I would bet you anything that we're going to see a rash of cases after the Riley case where the use of medication is an issue."
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Bioethicist David Wendler of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, US and colleagues wondered whether a formula could be used to better predict a patient’s wishes. They examined information collected by pollsters and scientists about the attitudes towards medical care held by the general US population.
The data suggested that most people want life-saving treatment if there is at least a 1% chance that following the intervention they would have the ability to reason, remember and communicate. If there is less than a 1% chance, people generally say they would choose not to have the treatment.
“The difference between zero and 1% is all the difference in the world for someone,” says Wendler.
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However, critics caution that computer algorithms should never supplant human surrogates. “I believe it would be extremely irresponsible to allow machines to make decisions involving life and death,” says Bobby Schindler, brother of Terri Schiavo. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years until she died in 2005 after doctors removed her feeding tube. Her case sparked huge debate in the US.
”If a person becomes incapacitated, is not dying, and can assimilate food and water via a feeding tube, then I believe that we are morally obligated to care for the person and provide them this basic care – regardless of a computer attempting to ‘predict’ what that person’s wishes might be,” Schindler adds.
“Essentially, you would be allowing a machine to determine what is ethical, what is right and wrong, which no machine is able to do.”
Can computers make life-or-death medical decision?
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