Posted on 11/23/2009 12:24:50 PM PST by moonpie57
Edited on 11/23/2009 3:46:03 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
UPDATE, 3:45p: The ADF lawsuit and pro-life hubbub caused the "ethics panel" to decide today to formally agree not to withdraw care for Baby Gabriel. Thanks to all who reposted and called the hospital!
ADF writes:
The agreement between the hospital and Baby Gabriel's mother has not yet been put in writing. ADF attorneys are withdrawing their motion for a temporary restraining order but will not withdraw the complaint until a written agreement is finalized. Until then, the lawsuit is still active.
ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman said, "We are pleased with the ethic panel's decision but look forward to full resolution in writing so Baby Gabriel's life will no longer be in danger."
------------------------------
The Alliance Defense Fund just filed an emergency injunction and restraining order in response to the decision a couple hours ago by an "ethics panel" at East Tennessee Children's Hospital to discontinue care of 9-month-old Gabriel Palmer.
According to an ADF press release:
Baby Gabriel was born prematurely with a genetic abnormality, club foot, and narrow airway, but he flourished when he went home from the hospital in June, where he grew, played, and received physical therapy while going to regular doctor visits. He was fed through a tube and received some oxygen and medications.
On an October weekend when the baby's regular doctors were unavailable, Palmer took her son to the ETCH emergency room because of breathing problems. After interventions by the medical staff, the baby went into shock, developed pulmonary vascular disease, and was placed on a respirator.
Despite the complications, Baby Gabriel is in stable condition, and an ETCH doctor determined he could live "a long while." The child is alert, active, and responsive when not sedated. In recent days while awake, he spent time kicking his feet, tried to play with his stuffed animals, listened to his mother and grandmother, and responded to his favorite music.
The ADF press release continues:
ETCH recently began giving up on Baby Gabriel's care, and on Nov. 13, the head of ETCH's PICU, Dr. Kevin Brinkmann [pictured right], told Palmer that the hospital was going to stop feeding him milk and giving him his medications, as well as disconnect his respirator, because the staff considered his care "futile."
Brinkmann said a formal "ethics panel" meeting at 12p EST Monday would determine whether to stop treating Baby Gabriel, but he noted that the decision was already a foregone conclusion. Ethics panel members have already said they will decide to cease the baby's care despite his mother's objections. ETCH's policies declare that treatment can be withdrawn over the family's objections as soon as the ethics panel makes its decision.
After doctors decided that Baby Gabriel was not worth treating, ETCH started discriminating against him by denying his basic care. Staff stopped bathing him, ceased applying cream to alleviate his chapped skin, reduced his diaper changes, and have not allowed his physical therapy. ETCH doctors have also discouraged Palmer's attempts to have her son transferred to other medical facilities where he could receive treatment.
ADF filed the motion for restraining order and injunction in Palmer v. East Tennessee Children's Hospital Association... which has set a hearing... for 3::30p EST Monday....
Call the ETCH Community Relations Office at 865-541-8165 to express your outrage. I just did.
WTF...? OK, these sort of things might happen if BamaCare happens...but why now?
Your Grandson is adorable, what a smile!
That, or enter into a contract with an insurance company...until the socialsits take over and then it is no choice- brute power. I don’t intend to be a victim of that game not anyone I know nor love.
The child is probably on Tenncare, which was an experimental pilot program of Hillarycare started in the mid-90’s in TN. Within a couple years there was massive fraud and way more people on it than it was originally designed to serve. Gov. Bredesen supposedly tried to get it under control and, from what I understand, did have some success but the program is nevertheless a behemoth entitlement that indeed removes a lot of decision making from the doctor and patient. TN doesn’t have an income tax but lawmakers tried to impose one a few years ago to cover the booming cost of Tenncare. The taxpayers of TN revolted (not the first time) and it was resolved for the time being by an increase to 9% sales tax, an amount that placed rural little red Tennessee up in the same sales tax bracket as high tax and cost of living blue states such as we see in the Northeast.
Rarely do we hear about what an expensive, bureaucratic disaster Tenncare has been. We’ve heard about Romney’s socialized medicine program cost overruns in MA, but Tenncare was way ahead of MA. My recollection is that the people of TN did not want Tenncare, but it was foisted on them in order to try to get a handle on their growing share of federally-mandated Medicaid costs. Specialists are leaving the program and most won’t take Tenncare patients anymore. Blue Cross and Blue Shield have a big hand in the program as managed care providers and they wield the capitation ax. From what I understand, Tenncare is not an unmitigated disaster but it’s a huge mess that simply can’t be controlled so “ethics” panels decide care based on costs without a lot of other considerations. The program is a snap-shot of typical government entitlement stupidity - too many people in the wago, too much bureaucracy steering the wagon, and too few people pushing the wagon. Insurance premiums went up for all Tennesseans carrying private insurance in order to offset the reduced payments paid to the carriers by the state. Now think about that for a moment. If insurance could be purchased over state lines, there would be competition. Carriers that aren’t participating in Tenncare would have lower premiums because patients wouldn’t be subsidizing the reduced premium payments from the state for the Tenncare load. If people could do that, then the subsidy dollars would trickle away to the lower premiums of the non-Tenncare carriers. By not allowing other carriers to compete, premiums are kept artificially high in order to subsidize the state’s refusal/inability to pay more per capita Tenncare patient. So, not only is the government incentivized to not allow competition, any time there is a government program involved there is also no incentive for the “private” providers to lower costs other than through rationing. They’re not going to cut their own costs through efficiencies because that impacts the overall gross product of the entire health industry. It’s more desirable to shortchange patients rather than contractors and vendors - their buddies - in the industry such that they only experience reductions that occur as a result of shortchanging the patients.
thank you thank you! Great ammo there.
About whether the hospital might not be reimbursed for services ... in our community, the hospital foundation has a charity fund for just such cases. People can donate to the hospital foundation, it has fund-raisers, etc.
Underlying questions: Who has the right to make decisions for a minor child? Its parents, or the state? Do we own our ourselves, or are we, too, wards of the state?
I think that last used to be called serfdom. Or slavery.
Thanks for all that info. Sounds a lot like why I don’t want Obamacare.
As I’ve said before, the assisted suicide car salesmen are selling us patient control and what’s really under the hood is a duty to die. It’s happened in other countries and in Oregon, and it will happen everywhere suckers buy the car.
But don’t worry...they’ll throw in some free car wash tokens.
I've been asking that question a lot lately. As far as the heavens are above the earth are His ways above our ways. Yet another proof that I'm not God.
We are supposed to be a civilized society. Those that are able to care for themselves should under penalty of law support themselves, those that can not WE have an a moral responsibility to care for them. Simply put, if a person has the physical ability to have sex, they can get off their lazy butts and work!
Take 3/4 of the whore crack addicts off of welfare and children like this would be taken care of, instead we’d rather throw money at those who refuse to care for themselves. Pathetic that so called conservatives are even pushing this ideal.
How absolutely disgusting it is to reduce a child to a simple dollar amount.
But let us say you are correct, this falls directly or indirectly on the taxpayer.
Is your answer to avoiding the cost at this time and this place right here and now to kill a child by starvation?
You stand on a principal that I concur with from a political standpoint, and in time it will come to pass as reality and the ability (or inability) of Government becomes apparent.
But how many shall die until we get there?
Losing sight of the human part of this will win you nothing, for it will only make the argument against our position strong in the eyes of those who have the final say, the good and decent people of this land.
The only way for you to have what you want right here and right now is for us to have never gotten to this point to begin with.
Of course the point maybe moot, it seems a deal has been struck and it is not uncommon for private hospitals to provide certain services as a “cost of business” or draw the funds from foundations and such.
The most important thing is that a life has been spared and given a chance to flourish, if it can, and I hope with God’s help it will.
Life, that is what I advocate for above all else, otherwise why "conserve" anything.
Seems oddly un-”conservative” to me...
I have been on this side precisely because we stand opposed to the culture of death.
You’re welcome.
Tenncare is a perfect illustration of how government-run health insurance swallows up the private carriers.
Me, too. What is the genetic abnormality? How is the child faring with the respirator? So the staff "discouraged" a transfer to another hospital. What does this mean? That they are kidnapping the child, or that there isn't another hospital interested and ready, and they told the family so?
I can’t understand why they can’t still bathe him and change his diapers and put lotion on him. I work at a hospital in critical care and even when the decision has been made (with long consultations with the family) to extubate the hopeless, the dying are still turned and washed and changed. And we clean them up after they have passed before the body is sent to the funeral home.
That’s because you are still human....
Do me a favor...next time you are sitting in a room with doctors or other nurses...ask your self honestly....who here could treat a bay like that...
Bet you are surprised to find a few...
The choices are very clear.
A. We spend what ever resources it takes of tax payer money to save this one child.
B. We spend what ever resources it takes of tax payer money to save every sick child in the country by providing them with full medical care.
C. We let the family and the private funds that they raise pay for this baby's care.
Now, since I see nothing that would indicate that this one baby is more important that all the other children in America, the only logical answer would be C since we cannot afford B.
Okay, I see, you believe in Obama Care or Socialized Medicine which would provide full health care coverage for those who cannot afford their own health care.
And interestingly, you are the first Freeper that I have read that seems to advocate the provision of Obama Care which would penalize those did not purchase health insurance.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.