ObamaCare Death Panel Lurks in New Jersey

In a case that could have nationwide implications, Trinitas Regional Medical Center here wants an appeals court to decide whether hospitals can refuse to continue life support over the objections of a patient’s family.

-- From "N.J. court to rule whether hospitals may refuse life support despite wishes of families, patients" by Sue Epstein, The Star-Ledger (New Jersey) 4/28/10

The hospital argued it should also be able to decide, in certain cases, whether to end life support even if patients have written directives stipulating they want life-sustaining efforts to continue.

"The hospital is not looking for the courts to overturn the advanced directives law, but to carve out an exception," said Kathleen Boozang, a professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law. "I’d say the hospital is looking for a narrow decision that (when) doctors believe the care given is grossly inhumane and medically inappropriate, the hospital has the right to terminate treatment."

Indeed, Gary Riveles, the attorney representing Trinitas, said hospital physicians "have to have the right to say enough is enough. The patient or patient’s surrogate should not have the unfettered right to maintain life when there is no chance left."

In a New Brunswick courtroom today, attorneys for the family at the center of the Trinitas appeal, along with advocates for the disabled and others who filed as friends of the court, asked the appellate judges to allow the final decision on life support to remain with patients and their families.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

Comatose Man Walks Out of Hospital

Wife had his feeding tube pulled after only a week

From "Comatose Mesa man walks out of hospital" by Rich Dubek, posted 10/19/07 at azcentral.com

Doctors said he had only a small chance of recovery. His own wife pulled his feeding tube after a week. But Friday, Jesse Ramirez walked out of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, alive and recovering.

It has been an amazing five months for the US postal employee and father of three who was literally at death's door when he was critically injured in a horrific accident. Jesse and his wife Rebecca were in their SUV when Jesse lost control and crashed into a Chandler pottery store. Rebecca suffered only minor injuries, but Jesse was airlifted to a hospital with a fractured skull and face, punctured lungs and broken ribs. One week after the accident, and following a couple of surgeries, Rebecca Ramirez pulled Jesse out of the hospital and moved him to a Mesa hospice. Rebecca then made the decision to pull his feeding tube and Jesse went six days without food or water.

...But one day after our story aired, the family called to tell us Mesa hospice officials put Jesse's tube back in and the courts were now involved. A judge later ruled that the tube must stay in, until they work through the legal issues of the case. While those things transpired, family members reported that Jesse was now opening his eyes, and making hand gestures. Clearly no longer in a vegetative state, he was communicating with family. In court, it became official when a court appointed guardian announced that Jesse was indeed alert and awake. He was then transferred to a rehab center to begin the long road to recovery.

Read the rest of this story.

Rationalizing the Murder of Terri Schiavo

Bobby Schindler has noted that whenever a supposedly vegetative patient, who doctors were sure would never react consciously again, suddenly regains understanding or "miraculously" awakens the reporters seem never to make the connection to his sister Terri Schiavo...

From "Subliminal Understanding That What Happened to Terri Schiavo Was Wrong?" by Wesley J. Smith, posted 10/15/07 at Secondhand Smoke

...It is as if these reports, to quote Shakespeare, "doth protest too much," as if there is a subliminal realization that a terrible injustice was done to her.

The latest almost unbelievable example is in an otherwise interesting and important (and long) piece in the New Yorker, byline Jerome Groopman. After describing how supposedly unconscious people have been misdiagnosed, the author quotes an unnamed neuroscientist about Terri. From the story:

A neuroscientist showed me a video on the Internet of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who spent fifteen years in what most doctors agree was a vegetative state--tests revealed almost no activity in her cortex--and whose death, in 2005, provoked fierce debate over the rights of severely brain-damaged patients. (Schiavo died after the Supreme Court rejected her parents' appeal of a judge's decision approving her husband's request that her feeding tube be removed. An autopsy showed extensive brain damage.) In the video, a man's voice can be heard praising Schiavo for opening her eyes in response to his instructions, and the neuroscientist told me that he was impressed until he muted the sound. "With the sound off, it is clear that her movements are random," the neuroscientist said. "But, with the voice-over, it is easy to make a misdiagnosis. (My emphasis.)

The above stills are from the video in question. It deeply touched my heart and it is seared forever in my memory. In that video, Terri is asked by the examiner to open her eyes. At first, nothing. Then, within ten or so seconds, her eyes flicker, she opens them, and then opens them so wide her forehead wrinkles. It is clearly an intentional response to the question.

But if you turn the sound off, there is no question to hear--and voila, her opening her eyes with clear intention can now be dismissed as merely "random movement." But a random movement under those circumstances would be to move her head from side to side or lick or lips. But when she opened her eyes, and so intently, precisely as requested, you have to work hard to make it "random." So, to make sure we don't see the terrible wrong that was done to her, we just turn off the sound.

Read the whole commentary.