<p>Good point. I would expect settlement as well. Although, I still think he’s intentionally turning up the heat to build support for his clients. Some of his public statements are pretty inflammatory.</p>
<p>There is not going to be a jury trial on this matter.</p>
<p>Agree with cartera. As said upthread, this is going to settle out of court.</p>
<p>[Jahi</a> McMath’s family struggles to find surgeons to operate on brain-dead teen - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jahi-mcmaths-family-struggles-to-find-surgeons-to-operate-on-brain-dead-teen/]Jahi”>Jahi McMath's family struggles to find surgeons to operate on brain-dead teen - CBS News)</p>
<p>^Here’s a bit more on the case and it actually mentions a little bit about the hospital’s side of the story.</p>
<p>“The hospital’s refusal to allow the surgeries appeared to reverse the position articulated Monday by a hospital spokesman. He said the hospital would allow a doctor retained by the family to insert a feeding tube and to replace the oral ventilator keeping Jahi’s heart beating with a tracheal tube - surgical procedures that would stabilize Jahi if she is moved to a facility willing to keep caring for her.”</p>
<p>“Straus, the hospital’s lawyer, reiterated in his letter that the hospital would release the girl’s body as soon as her family provided a detailed plan outlining how the move would be accomplished and written permission from the coroner. But he said neither has been submitted.”</p>
<p>“No facility has stated, unconditionally or otherwise, that it is prepared to immediately accept Jahi’s body,” he wrote.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jahi-mcmath-could-be-removed-from-life-support-despite-familys-wishes/2013/12/30/41f122f4-7191-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jahi-mcmath-could-be-removed-from-life-support-despite-familys-wishes/2013/12/30/41f122f4-7191-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html</a></p>
<p>^from this article:</p>
<p>“Yet for physicians at Children’s Hospital and elsewhere, treating a corpse is unethical, and the family has apparently failed to find another facility willing to keep McMath’s body connected to a ventilator.”</p>
<p>“According to the hospital, no arrangements for a transfer have been made. “This is not transferring an individual in a vegetative state, but a dead body,” hospital spokeswoman Cynthia Chiarappana told the Associated Press, noting the legal and medical difficulties involved in moving McMath.”</p>
<p>Someone early in this thread mentioned the cap issue…</p>
<p>[McMath</a> tragedy used for shameless fundraising - SFGate](<a href=“McMath tragedy used for shameless fundraising”>McMath tragedy used for shameless fundraising)</p>
<p>I doubt they’re going to find any surgeon willing to operate on a dead body. The procedures they want done to be able to transfer her are meant to sustain life and there is no life to sustain here. I think that is totally different than operating to remove organs for transplant .</p>
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<p>I was referring to the transport issue never going to a jury. I also believe the malpractice case will settle, but you never know.</p>
<p>[Terri</a> Schiavo family supporting Jahi McMath?s fight to stay alive* - NY Daily News](<a href=“National News - New York Daily News”>http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/terri-schiavo-kin-join-fight-jahi-mcmath-life-article-1.1564085)</p>
<p>What he says about the New York facility at the end is “interesting”. I hope the hospital fights. This situation is just too much.</p>
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<p>Obviously that’s an extreme example where a dermatologist whose practice consisted of injecting botox and treating acne would be immediately suspect. </p>
<p>But you know something? The average Joe wouldn’t understand the difference between a neurologist and a neonatologist with experience in NICU that obviously includes compromised / very ill babies. Heck, in the OB field, people tout Dr Marsden Wagner as an expert on how births should be run, and the guy is a pediatrician, not an obstetrician. The distinctions between specialties are lost on the average person. Do you think the McMath family cares that Dr Payne isn’t a neurologist? He gives them hope and hope is what they want.</p>
<p>If the family is able to find some qualified physician willing to perform the procedure, that person would (a) have to be licensed to practice in CA and (b) meet the criteria (whatever they are) for emergency hospital privileges at Childrens. The hospital is not going to bend their rules re: staff privileges for this family. So anyone they find is going, IMO, to have to be qualified to treat children/adolescents and be qualified to perform this procedure. They can’t , for eg, try to bring in a radiologist to perform this procedure.</p>
<p>
This quote from Dr. Byrne suggests an element of this case which is making it more difficult. Many people in this country–maybe even most–believe that miraculous healings can occur. I suspect that keeping the body “alive” provides some hope that such a miracle may occur. The issue is to what extent society should cater to this belief. I guess I tend to the view that if the family has enough money to fund the care, they shouldn’t be prohibited from doing so–any more than they should be prohibited from cryogenically freezing the body, or burying it in a giant pyramid, or whatever they choose to do.</p>
<p>I do think, though, that it is morally wrong for people to encourage them to do these things out of mercenary motives. Perhaps some of the encouragers have non-mercenary motives themselves–perhaps Dr. Byrne really believes what he says, for example.</p>
<p>Question: why would a licensed physician have to perform the procedure? It’s not being performed on a living person.</p>
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<p>But yet there are plenty of quack surgeons–right there in CA–willing to perform unnecessary and ill-advised procedures on Michael Jackson, reality TV stars, etc. In this case, the risk is low anyway–she is already dead.</p>
<p>jym - Correct. And, that’s unlikely. But what the public hears and the attorney ensures they hear is, “The hospital is killing my client.” This is a horrible mess with no good outcome possible. Whatever happens.</p>
<p>The hospital will settle, just like they did previously. It might be in the interests of the family, too:
[Jahi</a> McMath: 2 years ago, a girl wound up severely brain damaged following similar surgery - San Jose Mercury News](<a href=“Jahi McMath: 2 years ago, a girl wound up severely brain damaged following similar surgery – The Mercury News”>Jahi McMath: 2 years ago, a girl wound up severely brain damaged following similar surgery – The Mercury News)</p>
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Actually, that’s a false dichotomy. If you walked up to a person who is overweight and said “You’re fat” you’d be stating the obvious and also being insensitive. I won’t repeat Zoosermom’s several observations as to the tenor of your posts, but simply note that I agree with her.</p>
<p>As to the folks who have fallen back on medical expense or scarcity of ICU beds as a basis for pulling the plug here, two observations: first, the expense is reportedly being covered by private insurance. And we spend thousands of times as much as is being spent here every month on senile, bedridden, and often unconscious octo- and nona-genarians on an ongoing basis. Why is the “waste of money” on medical treatment for a 13 year old “unethical” when spending it to prolong the tortured existence of people who would have been long dead (by any definition) from their chronic conditions a few decades back not “unethical”?</p>
<p>As to the scarcity of ICU beds, there has been no indication that there are no unoccupied beds in the Childrens Hospital ICU, let alone the combined capacity of the community. It’s just a money issue.</p>
<p>Next, Uncle Bernie in the flower bed. We used to have a lot of laws saying what you can and can’t do with dead bodies. Most of them have been eliminated or loosened up for the exact reason I’m talking about here: they prohibited private conduct which didn’t hurt anyone. An uncremated corpse is a public health hazard, and therefore there is harm from leaving the corpse in bed. But once that health hazard is eliminated - well, it’s your business. I spread my father’s ashes in the Sierra Nevada mountains, as he wished. At one point (and in some places) that would have been illegal. It no longer is, because it harms no one.</p>
<p>Seriously: when prohibition of private conduct is at issue, the first question should be: does this harm anyone else?</p>
<p>Finally - no one is suggesting that any particular doctor should be forced to perform a medical procedure in any particular case. But I’d be surprised if there are zero qualified doctors in California willing to perform a tracheostomy on this girl. And this is the situation at hand:
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Hunt: The issue isnt so much who the patient is (alive/dead) but that the person performing the procedure meets criteria for temporary/emergency clinical staff privileges in the facility. There is a process to apply for temporary privileges and a procedure they have to follow to review that application before they can grant temporary privileges. Wonder what the requirement for malpractice insurance coverage is for a person with temporary staff privileges, or if the insurance carrier might question whether they would be covered by their policy. The carrier might possibly say this was outside the scope of the policy of the procedure is being performed on a decedent. Just more food for thought. And dr willing to do this (if they find one) better read their policy pretty darned carefully, or get something in writing, if possible, from their carrier.</p>
<p>“I don’t know why anyone should have to apologize for bringing up the bio dad or anything else for that matter. Characterizing these questions as family bashing is misguided at best. This case is intentionally being turned into a public spectacle and the effort to shape public opinion is in full swing. That’s not being insensitive it’s just stating the obvious. It doesn’t make the observer any less compassionate.”</p>
<p>Kluge - So, here’s the entire post. Chopping it up is misleading. And, interestingly I was defending someone else. That’s not even an issue I raised. But I don’t want to bicker.</p>
<p>I really wonder what would be lost to the hospital by helping to facilitate a transfer. Or saying that they would help to facilitate a transfer if it were possible (which it might not be). I’m not sure what they are gaining by taking such a combative stance all the way through. I’m also not sure at this point that sticking to the principle is ethically the better way to go in the big picture, rather than trying to cool off the situation. In my job, I’ve seen lots and lots of contentious cases in which PR people were brought in early and the public tone of the communications was monitored ruthlessly.</p>
<p>Perhaps one reason the hospital is refusing to recognize any of these procedures as medical is because they don’t want to be sued for reimbursement of the costs of performing them.</p>
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Is this documented somewhere? Don’t recall seeing what kind of health insurance the family has, but even if the continued length of stay has been approved (this usually has to be done on an ongoing basis for authorization of continued coverage for an inpatient stay), this doesn’t mean that all the services are covered or will be paid. Hospital per diem’s may be covered but procedures and Dr charges may not. And, to quote an insurance carrier “verification of benefits is not a guarantee of payment. Payment decisions are made at the time a claim is processed”. I would not be surprised if the carrier did not cover several services that are billed for after the child was declared legally dead.</p>