http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-jahi-mcmath-dies-20180628-story.html
Her body had been kept “alive” for more than 4 1/2 years. Rest in Peace, Jahi.
After all this, it’s hard to believe that NJ, or any state, “accommodates religions that don’t recognize brain death”. Just not a good idea, on so many levels.
I can’t believe any physician would perform surgery on her. She was already dead. The saddest statement is she had others take care of her other children while she sat next to her dead body.
A tremendously sad situation all round. I am glad that it is over for the sake of Jahi and her family. I hope they find peace.
sad all the way around. Another article: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/29/health/jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-teen-death/index.html
The whole situation was infinity sad. I hope with her death that research will support greater understanding around medical “death.”
She was dead years ago.
A princess bride quote came to mind yesterday when I heard this news.
Very predictable result… Sick bodies don’t heal well. Dead bodies don’t heal at all. I was wondering, too, what kind of surgeon would agree to operate on a dead person. Now, hopefully that doc is not going to be sued for malpractice.
I’m wondering if they would do an autopsy to see if her brain shrunk like Terri Schiavo which might prove for a fact that she truly has been dead all these years like we thought.
If they do find that to be the case, I seriously doubt they will allow that to be made public, because it doesn’t help them to recover the financial remedy they have verbalized that they want.
My heart goes out to the family. I think that one’s reaction to the situation overall depends on the level of trust one places in the medical profession. I also think that it has to be recognized that the level of trust placed in the medical profession may very reasonably differ for people of different races.
I will not comment on the level of attentiveness to Jahi’s situation when it became evident that she was in serious trouble in the hospital. That has been covered in various articles on the case, and I have no other knowledge of it. I also will not comment on the advisability of the operation itself. I am certain that the family regrets choosing a surgical option to treat the underlying problem.
I think that as Americans, regardless of race, we have not figured out how to handle end of life issues. I find them very hard to deal with, for the older people in my family, and extremely hard to contemplate for myself in the future. What is this horrible thing, death? Why can’t I see my aunt and uncle, who both died in 2017, again? I’d say, “What a rip-off!” but that is to make too light of my grief. Also, I am capable of appreciating that all living things are mortal, that it is in the nature of being alive that we eventually die, and that it may actually be a good thing, or at least not horrible, for generation to succeed generation.
When I think about this case, I think about the extreme devotion of the mother to Jahi. While it obviously would not have been a choice for any of the earlier posters on this thread (at least those who had already posted when I started this), I would not be willing to deprive the mother of her choice.
I recalled a story about a Chinese poet (which might be apocryphal, based on a quick internet search), who (perhaps) wrote:
Happiness is
Parents die
You die
Children die
I weep for everyone.
Here’s an article from the New Yorker Feb '18 issue about her.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/what-does-it-mean-to-die
I was wondering this too. But honestly, they could have done an MRI at any time to see this. They should have done an MRI if they thought she was just “brain injured”, as her Mom said, to check her progress and level of brain function.
But they won’t accept medical information that is contrary to what they believe, and that has always been the problem with this case.
I took a look at the New Yorker article just now, and one thing really struck me that I had not really registered before: That is, that “There were twenty-three beds in the intensive care unit, spread over three rooms.” Is that some kind of typographical error? When any of my elderly relatives has been in intensive care, the room has been a single room, and the ratio of nursing staff to patients has been high enough for very attentive care.
Perhaps this was post-operative care, rather than intensive care. It does not fit any reasonable form of intensive care that I know of.
@Quantmech, that sentence doesn’t tell us anything about nurse to patient ratio. Whether an ICU is designed as completely separate rooms or as a ward is irrelevant. It’s the ratio that counts, and I have never read anything to suggest that Children’s was not conforming to standards of practice with regard to nurse to patient ratio in the ICU.
If I had a family member in an ICU, I would certainly like for the room to be private. I don’t even know of ICU’s that are not designed that way. I actually think it might be an error in reporting–why would Jahi have been in an ICU post-operative? The sequence in the article makes it sound as though that is where she was initially, after surgery.
It is true, this does not tell how many nurses there were to staff 23 beds.
I am not suggesting that Children’s was not conforming to “standards of practice.”
But it seems to me that conformity to “standards of practice” would sound hollow to someone whose child had died. This whole tragic circumstance could possibly have been prevented if Jahi had been whisked back into surgery when she started bleeding seriously. It is impossible for an outsider to know.
I also feel sad about the other children who got so much less attention from Jahi’s mother during this time.
Yes, I am sad for the other children who didn’t have mom’s attention due to attention diverted to Jahi for years.
@QuantMech, the plan was to put Jahi in the ICU post op because it was a complicated surgery. This was not a run of the mill tonsillectomy, so due to its inherent risk, the plan all along was to put her in ICU. Not out of the ordinary for the scope of that surgery.
As far as whether their ICUs were a ward or not, and just working off memory, the ward set up described might have actually been PACU, the recovery ward. In any case, personal desires for a private room or no, that has nothing to do with the actual quality of care. I’ve worked at a world renown trauma ICU and they did not have private rooms for the entire unit. Each bed had curtains that could be drawn around the patient for privacy, but no, private rooms for every patient in a county hospital is not necessarily a given.
Since we have never had access to CHO’s side of the story and must depend on reports from biased family members not familiar with all of the medical implications, I would never make the statement above. We actually have no idea what transpired that day.