Paulo Melo
Melo family and friends leave the Supreme Court in Darwin yesterday after losing their court case. Picture: BRAD FLEET
Posted on 12/19/2007 5:00:27 AM PST by paulsy
"Paulo Melo, 29, has been in a coma at the Royal Darwin Hospital for two weeks, after severing his spinal cord in a car crash." - read more below: doctor requested, family objected, court granted
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Assets as in book value. Used to compute a country’s net worth in money.
Every person on the planet could be put on life support indefinitely and no one ever “die” short of being burnt to a crisp or otherwise disassembled...
People die all over the third world because they are dirt poor. Why aren’t you sending all your money to them? Or demanding all our money short of what it takes to survive be sent to the third world? A life is life isn’t it?
It isn’t my duty to pay for your mother’s life support. Nor is it a constitutional right to never ending medical care - or for that matter any care at all.
If the family wants to pay to put their relative on life support then more power to them. Don’t demand by force of law that everyone else pay for it.
But his prognosis remains extremely critical as doctors told the family before turning off the machine that he could only breathe on his own for up to three days.
Or what? They'll hold a pillow over his head?
NT man speaks after life support switched offRebekah Cavanagh
December 20, 2007 11:10amA MAN left to die when his life support system was switched off shocked his grieving family when he took a deep breath and asked for his father.
Paulo Melo was expected to die quietly when the Royal Darwin Hospital switched off his mechanical breathing machine yesterday, the Northern Territory News reports.
The 29-year-old Northern Territorian's life support was removed soon after his family lost their Supreme Court injunction against the hospital, which was granted on Tuesday.
The family asked the court to grant a 72-hour extension so a Sydney neurosurgeon could fly to Darwin to assess Paulo's chances of survival.
Holding his hand after the ventilator was turned off, his mother Amelia, father Fernando, brother Nelson and sister Isabel braced for the death of their loved one.
But Paulo was not ready to give up and started breathing on his own when the machine was turned off.
The car crash victim then tried to speak and is believed to have mumbled, "Dad".
His breathing grew stronger as the night progressed.
The family was last night hopeful he would survive the night. They said this could be the Christmas miracle they had been praying for.
Mr Melo, 57, cried tears of joy when he returned to family and friends in the waiting room to give them the good news.
"He was calling, `Daddy, daddy, daddy'," he said.
"We think he is trying to talk to us. I now feel fresh - I feel positive.
"I never thought he would last this long.
"I thought once they pulled the plug that would be it."
Mr Melo said his son is a fighter.
"He is fighting for his life," he said.
"It has been almost three hours and he is breathing on his own and his heart rate is strong. We believe there is still hope."
Only two people were allowed to be at his bedside at one time, with family and friends rotating in the hours after the machine was switched off at 4.15pm.
If Paulo continued to improve, he was to be moved into a ward late last night.
But his prognosis remains extremely critical as doctors told the family before turning off the machine that he could only breathe on his own for up to three days.
No. 20 specialists = 20 different opinions. You stand corrected.
Read Later
I don’t rely on specialist anymore as I was able to Dx a genetic disease I have, despite nearly 15 years of doctors trying to figure it out. It took me nothing more than 30 minutes online.
Well in my case I had about the same number of opinions, all coming from the files of 1 doctor, and they all got it wrong. It took ME to do my own research and diagnose my self.
Family outraged as hospital ends life supportMorphine overdose?By Tara Ravens
December 20, 2007 04:12pmA NORTHERN Territory family has reacted with anger as well as sorrow to the death of a man hours after a court ruled he be taken off life support.
The Melo family yesterday lost an 11th-hour bid to keep 29-year-old Paulo Melo on life support when they failed to prove to the NT Supreme Court in Darwin that he could come out of his coma.
The court agreed with doctors that further treatment would be futile.
Ninety minutes later, at about 4.30pm (5pm AEDT) yesterday, the Royal Darwin Hospital turned off the machines that were keeping Mr Melo alive.
He died about 9am (CST) today, shortly after the hospital gave him a morphine injection, said his family, who have welcomed a coronial inquiry into the death.
"My brother didn't pass away, he was forced on," Nelson Melo said today following his brother's death.
"We are devastated but we are also very, very angry."
Mr Melo had been on life support since his spinal cord was severed and he sustained serious head injuries in a head-on car crash in Kakadu National Park two weeks ago.
His family said even after his life support was turned off Mr Melo was breathing well and seemed to be talking.
"At eight o'clock this morning he was breathing well, he actually seemed to be breathing better than he had on the machine," Nelson Melo said.
"We were actually very confident and the family this morning had a sense of calm.
"Last night my mother, myself and the priest were at the hospital and he seemed to be talking. It sounds like 'hurt, hurt' and then 'dad, dad'."
The hospital told the family earlier this week that Mr Melo would never breathe independently again.
But the family claimed Mr Melo had begun to respond to them, moving his eyes and showing signs of breathing alone.
On Tuesday the territory's chief justice gave the family 24 hours to secure medical opinion that their son could survive his extensive injuries.
But yesterday afternoon Justice Dean Mildren rejected a request for another extension to fly a Sydney neurosurgeon to Darwin to make an assessment in person.
"On the medical evidence before me the case is futile," he said yesterday, as the court erupted into sobs.
Nelson Melo said today the family had already spoken to the coroner, who said she would investigate the matter fully.
"My mother is devastated, everyone in the family is....because of my brother's strong response (when he was taken off life support)," he said.
"We were happy and joyous because he seemed to be talking and that was the most anyone could hope for.
"Then for this to happen after they gave him the injection is so devastating and terrible."
The hospital's medical superintendent, Len Notaras, yesterday said every effort had been made medically and more than 20 specialists had agreed Mr Melo would not recover.
Asked if the hospital could have waited until after Christmas, Dr Notaras said there was no right time for something like this to happen.
Yeah, I kinda figured. : )
Melo family and friends leave the Supreme Court in Darwin yesterday after losing their court case. Picture: BRAD FLEET
My prayers are with the family and this person.
This decision has nothing to with Australia’s new Labor government.
The decision was taken by the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory - the Northern Territory being a legal entity similar to, but not quite, a state.
It isn’t a Federal level decision - that would involve the High Court of Australia.
Australia has a nationalised health care system, yes.
It also have a private health care system running alongside it.
Australians are free to choose whether they access and pay for the private system (or have insurance to pay for it), or whether they access the free system.
A lot of Australians (myself included) choose to do both at different times - if I need something fairly simple like a flu shot, or a medical certificate for work, I’ll use the government system. If I want anything at all complicated, I carry enough insurance to make sure I can go private.
If people are in a situation where they only have access to the government system, it’s because of the choices they’ve made.
“If people are in a situation where they only have access to the government system, it’s because of the choices they’ve made.”
Some people are just incompetent boobs, and aren’t able to make good decisions. Are they the government’s lawful prey?
Brisbane Times
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/12/20/1197740416998.html?s_rid=smh:top5
Denying medical treatment to a living, breathing person against family wishes would be criminal neglegencie - if not murder - in most civilized worlds.
Y'all, please take a minute to send the hospital an email, or the judge, or call the hospital, or do SOMETHING if you can.
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