Posted on 03/21/2012 4:30:37 PM PDT by wagglebee
Texas Right to Life denounced the decision by physicians to allegedly eliminate hydration and feeding of a patient under their care in a Texas hospital. According to the group, the hospital has refused to allow the patient and his family to take him to a nearby hospice for care. A March 20 news release from Texas Right to Life, “Willie breathed on his own through the night, but he is being dehydrated and starved to death. Because he hasn’t been fed or watered, his heart rate is dangerously low. After he breathed steadily last night, the hospital discussed hospice with the family. Now however, the facility is waiting for his heart to give out since his heart rate has diminished and will not revisit hospice care.”
Furthermore, declared the group, “They are now actively killing him, more so than yesterday.” The statement came from Elizabeth Graham, the director of Texas Right to Life.
Texas Right to Life says that the patient is a man named William, who as yet has not been further identified. The group said the hospital is located in northwest Houston, which is not yet further identified. The statement said, “Willie breathed on his own through the night, but he is being dehydrated and starved to death. Because he hasn’t been fed or watered, his heart rate is dangerously low. After he breathed steadily last night, the hospital discussed hospice with the family. Now however, the facility is waiting for his heart to give out since his heart rate has diminished and will not revisit hospice care.
The statement continued, “They are now actively killing him, more so than yesterday.” The group alleged that the physicians “pulled the plug on a patient whose family called me at the 11th hour, pleading to me to save their father's life. Despite the family's desperation to save their father, and everything Texas Right to Life did for them, the hospital's death panel decided to proceed and kill him.”
Texas Right to Life says that the patient is suffering from leukaemia, complicated by pneumonia. Taken for emergency surgery, he told his daughter before being sedated, "Fight for me, baby; I ain't done living." The man’s family had medical power of attorney and instructed the medical staff to continue their father’s medical care and treatment.
However, according to the group, physicians at the hospital decided last week that the patient’s family should either take him to another hospital or they would suspend hydration and feeding.
Trusting that their father had adequate health insurance, they asked the social worker at the hospital to arrange for a transfer. However, as the deadline approached they were told that no other hospital in the area would accept him. The family determined that the social worker had described their father as “one who had no hope of meaningful recovery, one whose quality of life was gone, one with no dignity due to his illness and disability.” As of March 19, according to Texas Right to Life, hydration and other treatment had been removed, even while the patient is now breathing on his own and has adequate medical insurance. The patient has yet to be transferred to another hospital or to hospice care.
Info: TexasRightToLife.com
No, that only applies to medical staff. If this is really happening, a 3rd party such as a family member could tell a reporter, or the TRL all the details and it could be dissemination without running afoul of any laws. One would think that given the alleged situation, that family members would be screaming the details to high heaven, yet the article is full of nothing but vague allusions.
Murder is the right word
We’ll have to start our own underground hospitals - like the underground railroad.
Oh come on Wags! Surely this sets off even your radar! By this account, this facility and staff just murdered this man against the family's wishes, and yet the family is asking that the identity of those involved not be disclosed? How completely cooperative and nice of them.
they'll come with reasons why....but if you have a morbidly obese patient, they are hard to place....a patient on restraints..hard or impossible to place in my region....a person who has complicated issues...hard to place....
we don't know the condition of this "willie" because the whole story is washed in secrecy....although after death, I am not sure Hippa still applies.....
was he 450 pounds?...was he on a bipap machine?...maybe had extensive wounds needing wound vacs...frequent suctioning....trach care?...
and if the family wanted hydration, would that require an elaborate IV site and very expensive TPN (IV nutrition)?....
the right to life people are not doing themselves any favors when they paint such a wide brush over these cases...each case is different...
and whatever happened to letting nature take its course?.....the very old and the very frail and the very very sick used to be able to die....
pneumonia used to be the "blessing of the aged"....
Perhaps now that he has passed away they don't want any publicity.
they'll come with reasons why....but if you have a morbidly obese patient, they are hard to place....a patient on restraints..hard or impossible to place in my region....a person who has complicated issues...hard to place....
He was ALREADY IN A HOSPITAL.
How many morbidly obese LEUKEMIA patients have you run across?
the right to life people are not doing themselves any favors when they paint such a wide brush over these cases...each case is different...
Yeah we've heard all the "each case is different" stuff before, but the culture of death has NEVER seen a case where they didn't think killing the person was the answer.
and whatever happened to letting nature take its course?.....the very old and the very frail and the very very sick used to be able to die....
Really? Have you or anyone you loved ever been on antibiotics? Ever had an appendectomy? Bypass surgery? Ever taken blood pressure or cholesterol medication? Do YOU avoid doctors no matter what and just "let nature take its course"?
My family also...husband’s elderly (88) mother. It was done without a word right under her children’s noses. Until we got there no one noticed that she was never given water, nor did any of them think to do so.
We invited hospice “out.” She made a remarkable improvement during the time that we were there because we constantly gave her ice & sips of water...she even sat up in bed and ate some ice cream the night before we had to leave to go back to our home.
I wish the story had a happy ending, but we had to leave, and within the next week she was right back in the same condition...daughter had called hospice back in.
One thing I know for sure, God will recompense to each one in the end.
I fought hospice years ago with my Mother. I would NEVER put my husband into hospice. I think it is a scam.
This "William" sure didn't.
The family involved here should do the same kind of thing.
I have too.
I think an appropriate response would be essentially a “force option”.
Once a destination has been determined, get some sympathetic medical personnel, and half a dozen strong-arm men along with a gurney and ambulance crew. Then, in the early hours of the morning go in and take him.
Admittedly, the strong arms will likely be arrested, and that should be part of the plan that if the hospital staff or security interfere, that it is the strong arms who will be the focus of force as the patient is spirited away.
It will take months or years to get it all sorted out in court, and by then the patient will likely have died a natural death.
But it will cause reverberations throughout the medical community and likely the government, to the effect that people will fight to keep their loved ones from being medically murdered.
So a battery of sympathetic lawyers should also be standing by, since the real battle will be in court.
Holy COW! How could this law even be constitutional? And if Wiki is correct, it became law in 1999. But how could that be? Wasn’t President Bush the governor then? I cannot believe a pro-life Christian like Bush would have ever signed such a thing
“the hospital has refused to allow the patient and his family to take him to a nearby hospice for care”
Me, in that situation:
“Allow” presumes I recognize your authority in this matter!”
“We are leaving, NOW!”
are they starving him, or just withdrawing treatment that won’t help (futile care theory)?
End stage leukemia along with pneumonia? Sounds like IV fluid would only prolong his terminal agony, not prolong his life. And Catholic law does not require extraordinary care...IV fluid here means either a deep IV line (which will only increase the chance of infection and heart failure) or spending hours trying to find a vein that won’t collapse.
I’d hold off before I dare to judge this matter.
are they starving him, or just withdrawing treatment that won’t help (futile care theory)?
End stage leukemia along with pneumonia? Sounds like IV fluid would only prolong his terminal agony, not prolong his life. And Catholic law does not require extraordinary care...IV fluid here means either a deep IV line (which will only increase the chance of infection and heart failure) or spending hours trying to find a vein that won’t collapse.
I’d hold off before I dare to judge this matter.
I think an appropriate response would be essentially a “force option”.
And not just for circumstances like these.
How is depriving someone of water and nutrition “letting nature take its course”?
By what legal right or authority can a hospital keep a patient incarcerated to prevent them being taken to hospice care?
I cannot imagine that hospital successfully resisting my (very well-armed) family if we knew one of ours needed hospice care.
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