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The hearing was scheduled for two o' clock Monday. It only took 45 minutes for the judge to decide that Janet Rivera should remain on life support.
It's been a tough few years for the Rivera family. Janet Rivera suffered a heart attack in 2006. She's been on life support for for more than two years. Her condition got worse and she was admitted to community regional medical center on July 5th.
Janet's husband, Jesus Rivera, was the public guardian. He was replaced by county coroner Dr. David Hadden.
Hadden says Jesus was not fit to be her guardian. Hadden seeked advice from 5 physicians. All agreed Rivera's situation was bad and said it would be best to remove Rivera from artificial life support saying her condition was "untreatable and irreversible".
The family disagreed and requested a temporary restraining order to keep life support measures in place.
Another hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. At that hearing Janet's brother Michael Dancoff says the family wants a change of guardianship.
Sanger Woman Stays on Life Support
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VATICAN CITY (CNS): Withholding artificial nutrition and hydration from a patient in a persistent vegetative state amounts to "euthanasia by omission," said the former president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations.
Dr. Gianluigi Gigli, a professor of neurology at the University of Udine, Italy, spoke to the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, July 23 about the case of an Italian woman who has been in a vegetative state for 16 years. Eluana Englaro, 37, was injured in a car accident in 1992.
Initially on a respirator for three months, she has been breathing on her own since then and opens her eyes in the morning and closes them at night. She shows no other signs of awareness.
Her father, Beppino Englaro, has been waging an eight-year legal battle trying to convince a court to allow him to stop providing his daughter with food and water and let her die.
Milan's civil Court of Appeals ruled July 9 that he could withhold nutrition and hydration because of the "extraordinary duration" of her vegetative state and her own wishes for her life, which were "irreconcilable with the total and irreversible loss of her mental faculties."
However, July 22 the Milan procurator general announced he was taking the court's ruling to the Supreme Court, which could block removal of the feeding tubes for up to one year.
Neurologist calls withholding hydration 'euthanasia by omission'
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Thank God!