<p>“If her family sees a benefit, wants to (and can) pay the cost, and finds a facility which is willing to provide the service there is no harm to anyone but the family which chooses to spend those funds in a way you or I might disagree with.”</p>
<p>I would agree in principle, but only if the relevant facility receives no government benefits that go to covering its overhead.</p>
<p>Well, the family in this case cannot pay and very few families could. They have raised 27K. Not near enough.</p>
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<p>[When</a> ‘life support’ is really ‘death support’ - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/28/health/life-support-ethics/]When”>http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/28/health/life-support-ethics/)</p>
<p>Only in 4-6 weeks it will be known if the fetus is really viable and what harm has been done to it by being deprived of oxygen while the mother was not breathing. Not sure I like everything about the Texas law, kluge!</p>
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<p>Cost and allocation of resources are also issues of medical ethics.</p>
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<p>I really doubt there are many facilities which are completely divorced from public funds/governmental benefits.</p>
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<p>That’s about 3-5 days worth of ICU care.</p>
<p>Would that we expended such effort on all the children in the world. </p>
<p>[Kevin</a> Carter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter]Kevin”>Kevin Carter - Wikipedia)</p>
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Nrdsb4, you are the one who equated keeping a brain dead patient on a ventilator with “desecration.” My point is that not all conduct with a body is “desecration.” That was your assertion, not mine. </p>
<p>Remember, I agree with you that pointlessly extending life when the end is inevitable and near is wrong. I’m probably more judgmental than you about doctors who treat people in that situation, especially in the case of the elderly where the near-term end is not in serious doubt. But when the family is advised that there is no hope of recovery, and chooses not to follow that advice I still assert that it is not medically “unethical” to provide that care.</p>
<p>The end in this case is not near or inevitable. It came on Dec 12th. Even the court ruled that she’s brain dead and still issued an order to maintain life support. </p>
<p>Can anyone explain that reasoning?</p>
<p>A 13-year-old girl began bleeding and went into cardiac arrest after what the hospital calls a complicated tonsillectomy</p>
<p>this is the issue. Who sends their kid in for this surgery and has any real expectation that they might not emerge perfectly fine.</p>
<p>The parents need help coping so that they can do the right thing. Right now, they’re in disbelief that their healthy kid ended up dead from a routine surgery.</p>
<p>these parents are also likely feeling VERY GUILTY. They approved the procedure, chose the doctor and hospital, and so forth. They need help.</p>
<p>If some very good therapist could step up and help these folks out, maybe this can have a reasonable, but still very sad end.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to them.</p>
<p>“Cost and allocation of resources are also issues of medical ethics.”</p>
<p>Once again, I don’t disagree. I just don’t think that formal training in ethics is any help in resolving the issues, which are based on either a) economic analysis or b) gut reactions.</p>
<p>As others have said, it was not a routine surgery and any surgery causes risks. They have had since December 12th to absorb this, much longer than most families get once a person has been declared brain dead. How long would you give them to absorb this- weeks, months, years?</p>
<p>Obese kids aren’t exactly healthy
" A study published in 2012 showed that severely obese children undergoing tonsillectomies had an increased risk of complications during their surgeries."
[When</a> the 3rd most common surgical procedure for U.S. children is deadly - Miami healthy living | Examiner.com](<a href=“http://www.examiner.com/article/when-the-3rd-most-common-surgical-procedure-for-u-s-children-is-deadly]When”>http://www.examiner.com/article/when-the-3rd-most-common-surgical-procedure-for-u-s-children-is-deadly)</p>
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<p>Wow, so now this traumatized family is also guilty of child neglect? There are plenty of legitimate debates in this case but this comment really reveals a disturbing level of hostility toward the grieving parents. Can those posters who so vehemently disagree with what this family is doing maybe dial it down a notch and pretend to have a bit of compassion for them?</p>
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By what standard to you assess your or my right to give or withhold that time? I think that is a part of the problem. People make irrational, even stupid, decisions all the time. We pretty much let them do that, as long as they’re not harming someone else. Outside of the financial issue - who pays for it - I find this situation to be far less black and white than those who are certain that the family should be forced to acquiesce in what those of us posting here - unanimously, as far as I can tell - think is right.</p>
<p>As to the finances, what I’ve read locally is that the family has private insurance which assertedly will pay for the care; the fundraising ($27,000) is reportedly being undertaken to pay for the cost of preparing and transporting the girl to the facility which has agreed to provide the care.</p>
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<p>No one disbelieves that the parents are living their worst nightmare. But there is no other situation in which a dead person is given “life support” services. A stillborn baby is a traumatizing event - but a mother gets to be with her stillborn for, say, a day or two, and then the hospital takes it away to be properly buried. Any death is a traumatizing event - but you can’t throw yourself at the foot of your beloved’s hospital bed and insist that you never be moved.</p>
<p>Look at this way. let’s say instead of dying in the hospital, the young lady had been in a car accident and pronounced dead at the scene, or maybe in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Would the family have the right to “insist” she be given life support? Even if they had money falling out of their wallets? This is unfortunate that it happened <em>in</em> the hospital, but ethically speaking, how is this different from a death that occurred elsewhere or in an ambulance?</p>
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<p>Do you think hospitals, then, are wrong for not allowing a brand-new mother to sit in the hospital bed for a week, month, 6 months with her stillborn baby? If there should be no time limit, that is.</p>
<p>It’s very doubtful that health insurance will pay for a dead person’s care.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is any insurance that is obligated to pay for services for a dead person? What private insurance do they have that will cover any of this? </p>
<p>Crossposted with actingmt</p>
<p>At some point-- and for me, that point has been reached-- we get to society’s revulsion for desecrating a corpse. I don’t think that grieving families should be able to do anything they want with the body of the person they loved. I’m deeply sorry for these parents, because losing a child is the worst thing I can imagine, but this is getting creepy.</p>
<p>CF - We agree again!</p>
<p>She may not be legally “dead” to the insurance company if there is no death certificate, but I am not a lawyer… Any lawyers want to comment on this?</p>
<p>I’m not a lawyer but she was declared dead on Dec 12th. The court also ruled that she was brain dead after an independent examination by a Stanford neurologist. And the hospital now requires a coroner’s release to move the body.</p>
<p>Insurance has refused payment for less.</p>