Posted on 06/15/2007 2:54:30 PM PDT by balch3
MESA, Ariz. - An incapacitated Chandler man in a hospice must be kept alive and given a special guardian, a judge has ruled. Jesse Ramirez, 36, suffered a broken neck, fractured skull, punctured lung, broken ribs and fractured face in a rollover crash May 30 in Chandler. A neurosurgeon told Ramirez's wife and family on June 8 that doctors had done all they could for Ramirez, who maintains minimal brain activity. Ramirez's wife, Rebecca, reportedly wants him to be denied food and water but his parents and sister want him to be given life-supporting care.
(Excerpt) Read more at azstarnet.com ...
preaching - I am sure there was a question mark that generally denotes a question.
Doesn’t he know that being dehydrated is a beautiful death? How cna this inhuman judge deprive the hospice patient of such a glorious death?
It's in all the textbooks.
“excuse me I don’t mean to sound heartless but the ultimate decision should rest with the spouse”
Excuse me, but the ultimate decision should rest with the patient — it’s called a Living Will, something a good many Freepers would do well to read about, rather than turning every nationally known individual dying process, into a Schiavo soapbox.
but in this case, I would give the man more time.....his accident was just last month....wait a few more months...see if he improves.....
God didn't mean for us to be unbreakable....he gave us human bodies for a reason.....
I know of no Hospice that would run IV's that's why your story doesn't sound quite right......
having said all that, I'm am not a Hospice fan....with my mom, we did all the care, and the Hospice people just showed up once in a while, plus I think they were stingy with medications....every increase in pain med was very small...
plus, the only person my folks really liked of the bunch was the social worker who was also a chaplain of sorts and sang religous songs which my mom and dad loved....unfortunately, she came rarely.....
. and despite promising to come to her funeral and to follow up with my Dad, they did neither.....
Mr. Ramirez is not on “life support.” He is breathing on his own and is simply receiving nourishment and hydration (you know, that “life support” known as food and water) because he is in a medically-induced “coma-like” state.
No, this is not “another Terri Schiavo.” That lasted more than a decade. This man was in a car accident TWO WEEKS ago. He is recovering from that accident. Doctors have determined his prognosis to be that he could possibly be a vegetable or he could possibly regain most normal functions. Much uncertainty to kill him so early in his recovery, don’t you think?
I understand the position about the wife making medical decisions. However, it is not a “medical decision” to prevent a person in recovery from eating and drinking, even if that person can not yet do that on his own. BY AZ law, a surrogate MAY NOT make that decision and without a living will or power of attorney, the wife is SOL in her desire to kill him.
Additionally, this couple had been experiencing a rough time in their marriage for an extended period. They were having an INTENSE fight when the SUV rolled. AZ law requires that if a life/death decision is made, it is made by a competent person who has the injured person’s best interest in mind. Rebecca seemed all too eager to kill him by starvation and dehydration. Therefore, the family has a right to have the questions answered regarding Jesse’s best interests and whether Rebecca is acting in good faith. That insurance money, yes there is insurance money at stake...can’t be a factor, right?
What the parents are asking is that he be given a fair chance at recovery. Ten days (the time from the accident to when his wife ordered that he be moved to hospice and that he be starved and dehydrated to death) IS NOT long enough. Any compassionate human being who knows these facts and considers also that Jesse has three kids ages 17, 14 and 11, could not possibly arrive at the conclusion that he has been given a fair opportunity. That’s all his folks, his brothers, sister and the rest of his family are asking for. They have stated that if his condition is determined by doctors to be hopeless that they will let go, but ten days...too soon.
There are many old wives tales about the brain and its ability to recover!
For instance - scientists are STILL finding out a lot about the brain:
“A study of the “miraculous” recovery of a man who spent 19 years in a minimally conscious state has revealed the likely cause of his regained consciousness.
The findings suggest the human brain shows far greater potential for recovery and regeneration then ever suspected. It may also help doctors predict their patients’ chances of improvement. But the studies also highlight gross inadequacies in the system for diagnosing and caring for patients in vegetative or minimally conscious states . . .
The team’s findings suggest that Wallis’s brain had, very gradually, developed new pathways and completely novel anatomical structures to re-establish functional connections, compensating for the brain pathways lost in the accident.
There were also significant changes between scans taken just two months after the recovery, and the most recent, at 18 months. Some of the new pathways had receded again, while others seem to have strengthened and taken over as Wallis continued to improve.
Krish Sathian, a neurologist and specialist in brain rehabilitation at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, US, describes it as an amazing finding. “The bounds on the possible extent of neural plasticity just keep on shifting,” he says.
“Classical teaching would not have predicted any of these changes.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9474-rewired-brain-revives-patient-after-19-years.html
It’s exactly as I told it. The hospital persuaded them to admit him to hospice and hospice lied to my mother. My stepfather signed his own admission papers and by the PM of that same day was so over-medicated that he couldn’t sign himself out even if my mother could have found someplace else to take him, which she was unable to do because no one wanted him since he was in hospice.
Where he was they ran an IV so they woldn;t have to keep sticking him for pain meds ect.
My mother hates hospice and I have promised her I would NEVER allow her to be treated by them.
Thank you for adding significant facts and context to the story. That puts it all in a very clear light.
We’ve already paid; it’s called taxes and bill adjustments.
The only thing I read was that "a doctor told Jesse’s family that if he lived, he would probably be blind and would remain in a persistent vegetative state." It was only after receiving that news that his spouse had the doctors transfer him to a hospice and remove his feeding tube.
Where did you read that a doctor said he could possibly regain most normal functions? I'd like a link to that.
What would you prefer?
We had better kill him, just to play it safe.
I have a hard time supporting people who “want” things that they are not going to pay for. The taxpayers are going to pay for this man’s care costs.
Accidents happen. Since it was a vehicle accident, was it his fault? Drinking? Not wearing seat belts? Whatever??
I know that this case could run into millions of dollars and he could never recover.
What is the limit that the taxpayers are expected to pay for?????
Ergo, neither do you.
Shared costs make grand and baseless asuumptions such as all those doctors, nurses, technicians, the lights, A/C, and all other hospital subsystems are only fired up for each “measured” case.
The reality is that a hospital and government services that provide utility to the public at large have fixed costs set mostly by administrators and it is only through the multiple charging of the shared true costs of these fixed costs that outrageous figures for care are then stated as though the hospital was spending nothing if nobody used it on a given day.
If you are so eager to see someone die, join the military.
Thanks!
The costs of life support are born by individuals and insurance not the government. You are either ignorant or plain stupid or both.
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