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A Fresno County judge has ordered life support temporarily restored to a comatose woman. Probate Judge Debra Kazanjian issued the ruling on July 23 at the urging of family members of Janet Rivera of Sanger, whose feeding and hydration tubes had been removed two weeks earlier at the request of a county-appointed guardian. She has been on life support for more than two years.
Judge Kazanjian said she would revisit the issue on Tuesday, July 29, following a thorough assessment of Sanger’s medical condition.
Rivera, 46, suffered a heart attack in February 2006 and never regained consciousness. Her husband, Jesus Rivera of Sanger, had been Janet’s conservator until June 17, when the county replaced him with the county guardian Dr. David Hadden. Why the county removed Rivera from the conservatorship is unknown, the Rivera family’s attorney, Brian Chavez-Ochoa of Valley Springs, told the Fresno Bee. The Rivera family has said it wants Janet’s cousin, Suzanne Emrich of Boulder Creek, to take over the conservatorship.
According to a statement from the county conservator’s office, Fresno’s De Witt Community Subacute Center in Fresno, where Janet Rivera had been a patient, had requested in March that the county take over her conservatorship. Rivera’s medical bills were being paid for by Medi-Cal.
After the change in conservators, Janet Rivera’s condition became worse. She was admitted to Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center’s intensive care unit on July 5. Six days later, on the advice of Janet Rivera’s doctors, Hadden had her feeding and hydration tubes removed. According to a statement from the guardian’s office, Hadden made his decision after “immense consideration” and based on Rivera's "untreatable and irreversible condition and to prevent any and all suffering that she may be enduring."
Rivera’s family, however, objected to Hadden’s order. Jesus Rivera told the Bee he wants "her body to give out when it gives out between her and almighty God and no one else. You can't starve someone to death."
The family contacted the Alliance Defense Fund and Life Legal Defense, as well as Chavez-Ochoa, who is not charging for his services. “Our argument centers on the sanctity of life,” he told the Bee. Chavez-Ochoa is a longtime pro-life, pro-family attorney. He was an adviser in the Terri Schiavo case. Schiavo was the brain-damaged Florida woman who died of starvation in 2005, 13 days after her feeding tubes had been removed. The battle to save Schiavo’s life became a national cause, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
Even though most of her medical bills have been paid by Medi-Cal, county officials said Mrs. Rivera has accumulated $200,000 in unpaid medical bills. They insist, however, that the cost of care has played no role in the decision to take her off life support.
“You can't starve someone to death”
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