Words cannot express how happy I am for Baby Joseph and his family.
Threads by Kaslin, NYer and me.
To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.
ST. LOUIS, Missouri, March 21, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Joseph Maraachli, who had been set to have his ventilator removed against his parents’ wishes at an Ontario hospital last month, received a tracheotomy Monday morning and is doing well, says his family.
His parents, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader, took Joseph to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri last Sunday after trying unsuccessfully to get him the simple procedure at his Ontario hospital, London Health Sciences Centre.
The surgery involves a slit in the throat to allow a breathing tube to be inserted into the airway. The tube allows for suction of fluid out of the lungs, creates a safe and stable way to use a mechanical ventilator, and is more comfortable for the child.
The parents have been asking for this procedure in hopes that they could take Joseph home. The Maraachli’s daughter Zina died from a similar neurological disorder eight years ago, and in that case the family took her home after doctors performed the simple procedure. They now want the same for Joseph.
In a statement today, Cardinal Glennon hospital said that Joseph is currently in the pediatric intensive care unit, where tracheotomy patients routinely spend 7 to 10 days following the procedure.
“After he is discharged from SSM Cardinal Glennon, Joseph will travel to Ranken Jordan - A pediatric specialty hospital in St. Louis before being transported to his family home in Windsor,” said the hospital. “It is our hope that this procedure will allow Joseph and his family the gift of a few more months together and that Joseph may be more comfortable with a permanent tracheotomy.
The statement concluded: “As with any of the children we help, our primary focus must remain on the patient and what is best in his or her individual circumstances. We ask that you keep Baby Joseph and his family in your prayers.”
Joseph was airlifted to the hospital Sunday night with the help of the U.S.-based Priests for Life, who are also covering Joseph’s U.S. medical expenses and his family’s accommodations.
Dr. Paul Byrne, a fifty-year veteran in the field of neonatology based in Ohio, told LSN last month that in his opinion Joseph should have had a tracheostomy “a long time ago.” He also insisted that he has never seen a need to remove a child’s ventilator. “If a baby has a disease process that’s so bad that they’re going to die, then they die on the ventilator anyway,” he explained.
The London hospital’s decision to remove Joseph’s ventilator against his parents’ wishes was backed up in January by the Ontario Consent and Capacity Board, and again on February 17th by the Ontario Superior Court.
Superior Court Justice Helen Rady’s decision was based on doctors’ testimony that he is in a permanent vegetative state with no brain stem reflex. But the family has contested that claim, pointing to footage showing him flailing and reacting to tickling.
After the Superior Court ruling, the hospital had appeared set to remove Joseph’s ventilator on February 21st. The move was delayed, however, when the family hired an expert lawyer with the financial backing of Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. Handelman was later replaced by Claudio Martini.
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, has warned that Ontario is creating a system where doctors are authorized to force life and death decisions on patients.
In a blog post last week, he said the case emphasizes the need to reform a legal system in the province that favors hospitals over families in cases of disagreement over care. “The law has a natural inequality that has resulted in a plethora of precedent setting cases that support the role of the doctor/hospital to make medical decisions against the wishes of the family. This needs to change,” he wrote.
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Health Reform: A Canada court had ruled that under socialized medicine their baby must die in the hospital. Now he's in the U.S., getting the care his parents, not the bureaucrats, want.
Joseph Maraachli, who’d been set to have his ventilator removed against his parents’ wishes at an Ontario hospital last month, got a tracheotomy Monday morning and is doing well, his family says. The procedure was denied him under a system of medicine that may be coming to a hospital near you courtesy of ObamaCare.
His parents, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader, took Joseph to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis on Sunday after trying unsuccessfully to get him the simple procedure at London Health Sciences Centre, a hospital in Ontario, Canada. Doctors report he is resting comfortably.
His parents will soon be able to take him home, which was their initial wish. No one should outlive his or her children. Thirteen-month-old Joseph has a neurodegenerative disease that doctors say leaves little hope for recovery. Nine years ago his parents lost an 18-month-old daughter to the same disease. What’s made the anguish of this Windsor, Ontario, family worse this time is that the parents have spent precious time battling courts and medical boards as to just how and where their son should die.
“He’s a human,” Moe Maraachli told Fox News. “He has a right to fight.”
But Ontario Superior Court Justice Helen Rady recently ordered the couple to agree to take Joseph off his ventilator. The court was upholding a decision already made by Ontario’s Consent and Capacity Board, which some here might call a death panel.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
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March 23, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Baby Joseph Maraachli has now been baptized, according to Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life.
In an e-mail update about baby Joseph’s status, Fr. Pavone announced: “Baby Joseph was baptized just the other day, and Jerry Horn of our Priests for Life team is now his godfather.”
The past two weeks have been full of major developments for Joseph and his family. After being airlifted to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri last week, on Monday doctors at the hospital performed the tracheotomy that Joseph’s parents have been requesting all along.
According to a press release from the hospital, Joseph is currently in the pediatric intensive care unit, where he is expected to spend seven to ten days. After that he will be transferred to a pediatric specialty hospital in St. Louis, before going home.
These happenings mark a dramatic change from just one month ago, when the Ontario hospital where Joseph was being treated was prepared to remove his breathing tube against his parents’ wishes, with the support of a court decision.
Moe Maraachli, Joseph’s father, said in response to this week’s events: “It’s a miracle. My son now has freedom. I’m very happy. My wife and I will respect the second opinion from the hospital in St. Louis. We will accept it with all my heart because Joseph got his human right to get a chance to get a second opinion. When God wants to take his life He’ll take it and nobody can say ‘No’ to God.”
In the recent update, Fr. Pavone explained, “Let me assure you, none of us at Priests for Life is saying that Baby Joseph – or anyone else, for that matter – should be given every treatment no matter what. Nor are we imposing any specific treatment on the child.
“All we wanted to do was give the child reasonable care and provide the parents with a second opinion. Period. And thanks to you and the incredible support from pro-life activists all across the country, Baby Joseph got that chance!”
Fr. Pavone also said that medical expenses are expected to rise to as much as $150,000 during Joseph’s stay in the U.S. Priests for Life has offered to cover all of the medical expenses, and is asking for the support of donors to help foot the bill.
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Joseph Maraachli just after his baptism
St. Louis, Mo., Mar 25, 2011 / 06:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The godfather of Baby Joseph Maraachli, whose fight for life has attracted international attention and support, says the terminally ill boy's recent baptism was a testimony to the eternal destiny of human life.
“It's a tremendous testimony to the sanctity of life,” said Jerry Horn, senior vice president of the Catholic pro-life ministry Priests For Life, who was Joseph's baptismal sponsor. “So many people worked together in concert to bring him here, for a purpose greater than we could anticipate.”
“We were doing what we could to save the life of a child – which is why we do what we do, in the pro-life movement,” Horn reflected. “But God's plan is eternal, and it goes far beyond ours.”
The 13-month-old boy received the sacrament from a Catholic priest in St. Louis, Missouri on March 18, two days before receiving a tracheotomy on March 21.
Joseph suffers from a rare and usually fatal neurological disorder called Leigh Syndrome. With the help of the Catholic pro-life ministry Priests For Life, he was transferred to a Catholic pediatric hospital in St. Louis, Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center, on March 13.
Prior to this, the boy was a tracheotomy at a hospital in Ontario, Canada, where doctors were planning to remove his feeding and breathing tubes. The doctors' refusal of care prompted comparisons to the 2005 Terri Schiavo case, and led to an outpouring of support from pro-life advocates.
Jerry Horn discussed Joseph's baptism with CNA on March 24, shortly after Priests For Life director Fr. Frank Pavone made the news public in a March 22 media release.
Horn spoke with a sense of awe, as he described how a boy who was considered unworthy of medical treatment, was able to receive an initiation into the supernatural life of sanctifying grace.
“In so many ways, God's plan was greater than ours. The fact that he was baptized into the Church was amazingly significant.” Joseph's baptism took place around 5 p.m., meaning that it occurred on the vigil of the March 19th feast day of St. Joseph.
“No matter what happens with Baby Joseph from this point forward, he has received the sacrament of baptism,” Horn said.
Dr. Paul Byrne, a pioneering neonatologist with almost five decades of experience, took the initiative to have Baby Joseph baptized. He said the baptism was “one of the most exciting things about taking care of Baby Joseph,” and noted that the same “holds true for all sick babies” who require baptism.
Over the course of several decades, Dr. Byrne has himself baptized many infants who were in danger of death. Catholic teaching holds that anyone, not just a priest, can baptize a child in cases of necessity, as long as water and the traditional Trinitarian formula are used with the correct intention.
In this case, however, Dr. Byrne sought out a local priest. He said it was “relatively easy to strike up the conversation with Joseph's father and mother,” Moe and Sana Maraachli, to obtain their permission for the baptism.
“The father said that he himself was Muslim, but the mother is Catholic,” explained Dr. Byrne. “The father said he wanted his son to be raised in the religion of his mother.”
Barring a medical miracle, Joseph is unlikely to reach the age at which most children receive the other sacraments. Dr. Byrne said it was a “special privilege” to participate in treatment to prolong Joseph's life, “when other people were determining that he should not live any longer.”
The greater privilege, however, was in helping Baby Joseph to receive the gift of God's grace in baptism.
“When a baby is baptized, they are absolutely pure,” he said. “It's so exciting to be a part of that.”
