Family wants to keep life support for girl brain dead after tonsil surgery #6

[jjenny]

Did anyone else get the impression that the family is paying out of pocket for her medical care? IIRC, there was a reference made yesterday that NW thanked ppl who had donated as it was going to Jahi's care. Am I recalling this incorrectly?

Since she is considered dead, I don't think insurance is going to pay.

 

[Donjeta]

Doctors at the new care center performed tracheostomy and gastrostomy surgeries, Christopher Dolan, attorney for the girl's family, said in a Twitter message on Wednesday.

"She is doing very well, and now getting the treatment she should have gotten 28 days ago," Dolan said. "Doctors are optimistic that her condition has stabilized."

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2162277,00.html

Two page article about faith, miracles and the limits of medicine. Well worth a read, whether you're religious or not. (IMO)

Unlike the real valley of the shadow of death, which every human society has known, this uncanny valley is one that we modern human beings have created for ourselves. Far from solving the problems we want medicine to solve--our vulnerability and mortality--it can actually heighten them, leaving us more vulnerable and no less mortal.

Life in this uncanny valley's shadow is neither death nor life. It calls forth mourning but also forbids it. It offers the slimmest of hopes, but in many, if not most, cases it slowly squeezes hope out of life one mechanically induced breath at a time.

A great deal is at stake in this uncanny valley's shadow. Our society spends extraordinary amounts of money on care at the end of life. If all that money really did lead to flourishing health, it would be well spent.

But many families choose the uncanny valley without understanding just how hard the journey will be. Raymond Barfield, director of the pediatric palliative-care program at Duke, sees every day what researchers have documented: religious families are consistently the ones most likely to insist on heroic measures and most likely to resist doctors' assessments of viability. It is the people with a "strong faith" who also want the most dramatic technological interventions.

I believe Omari Sealey when he says he has a strong faith. But a strong faith does think about the possibility of death. A strong faith accepts our limits as mortal creatures, including the limits of medicine and the ultimate limit of death.

Of course, a strong faith also accepts the possibility of miracles. I believe there are genuine miracles. Nearly every doctor can attest to having seen recoveries that had no plausible medical explanation.

But miracles are not the result of human or technological heroics. They come, if they come at all, when we are at the end of our heroics. And miracles are not magic. They do not come because we somehow persuade God to act by our strong faith. Sometimes, even for the most faithful, they do not come at all.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...tion-needs-declared-brain-dead-month-ago.html

The family of California teenager Jahi McMath said her 'healing begins' today after doctors successfully fitted her body with breathing and feeding tubes.

Nailah Winkfield, her mother, claimed the 13-year-old’s body was fitted with a tracheostomy to her windpipe and a gastrostomy to her stomach this morning.

She said the procedure meant that her daughter was getting the nutrition she needed for the first time since she was declared brain dead a month ago.

It also meant that she could be 'kissed on the lips' without a ventilator tube being in the way.

A spokesman for family said: 'Doctors are optimistic that her condition has stabilized and that her health is improving from when she was taken from Children's Hospital Oakland.'

IDK...Her BP and other stats may have been stabilized by a massive dose of meds but I think that if those doctors really are "optimistic" concerning a brain dead person's "healing", their professional competence may need to be re-examined.

I have a feeling that the kissing part may be rather important here. She looks more like herself without the medical equipment in her face so it's easier to think she's just sleeping. (I hope the coroner authorized them to remove the tubes that were in place at the time of her brain death)

Dolan pulls the racism card:

'The whole thing about me giving them false hope is a construction of public relations because they needed a villain,' Mr Dolan said.

'Not only that but it is patronising to Jahi’s family if not bordering on racist: these minority people are being deceived by this white lawyer, it was they seemed to be saying.

'The family made the decision. This case was about who decides what happens to a child, the parents or doctors.

'I always said there was very little hope she will recover but this family needed to be able to fight for this girl,' he added.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't remember Sam Singer saying anything about the race of any of the participants.

More misinformation (I know we all needed and wanted some more misinformation...):
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...y-brain-dead-teen-improving-article-1.1570343

A 13-year-old girl declared brain dead after tonsil surgery complications is said to be "improving" since having her feeding tube replaced, her attorney tweeted Wednesday.

The optimistic news comes just two days after Jahi McMath's family said that the teen may not "make it" after her surgically inserted tubes were removed by California doctors nearly one month ago.

 

[Zuri]

Since she is considered dead, I don't think insurance is going to pay.

I wonder if there will be more solicitations for money. $50K doesn't last long in medical care, especially with 2 procedures. IMO

 

[Cubby]

Christopher Dolan @cbdlaw
Doctors are optimistic that her condition has stabilized and that her health is improving from when she was taken from CHO.


I'm not sure which is scarier, the fact that these "doctors" and others believe a dead person is "improving", or that these same people are allowed to vote. :waitasec:

:dunno:

I don't believe there is any truth to the reports coming from the family. The family has lost focus imo. This is no longer about Jahi. It's about a personal vendetta against the hospital, and a desperate need to prove NW is right, at any cost.

 

[Leilei]

I wonder if there will be more solicitations for money. $50K doesn't last long in medical care, especially with 2 procedures. IMO

In the presser from Sunday night, after they removed her from CHO, Dolan mentioned something about charities or charitable organizations.

If a charity is helping to pay for this, I would think very carefully about donating to said charity, if the name is ever released. IMO.

 

[Herat]

Did anyone else get the impression that the family is paying out of pocket for her medical care? IIRC, there was a reference made yesterday that NW thanked ppl who had donated as it was going to Jahi's care. Am I recalling this incorrectly?

Yes, NW thanks people who donate. She didn't really say what the money was being used for, a Ind she really doesn't have to as this is not going through a foundation or charitable organization.

She does have to report this to the IRS, doesn't she? Isn't is considered "gifts" by the IRS?

Dolan has stated that the family is not paying for the medical care her physical shell is receiving. He implied that there were charitable agencies paying for it, which I assume would be Terri Shiavo Foundation, and that the physicians were not charging.

So finances about this are all murky, as is the location and type of facility.

I see his goal to perpetuate care of her physical shell for as long as possible to get her perceived as "alive and improving", which changes the type and more importantly, the amount of compensation possible in a lawsuit.

Again, $250K vs $30 million.

I fully expect this will drag on for as long as they can keep it going. Evidently a physician has no compulsion about giving medications, feeding orders, ventilator orders, doing invasive procedures on the brain-dead child.

And there will be a daily update about how much better she is doing, now that she is getting the "care" that was denied by CHO. Maybe they can keep this going for a month. I dunno. Dr. Fiori's statement to the court was certainly documenting deterioration of multiple organ systems.

 

[jjenny]

I wonder if there will be more solicitations for money. $50K doesn't last long in medical care, especially with 2 procedures. IMO

50 k is not going to go far to pay for a care of a brain dead person.
While the person is already legally dead, it's hard to keep their body alive.
It's a lot of care involved.
If insurance won't pay, somebody has to.

 

[Herat]

I don't believe there is any truth to the reports coming from the family. The family has lost focus imo. This is no longer about Jahi. It's about a personal vendetta against the hospital, and a desperate need to prove NW is right, at any cost.

Plus Uncle Omari's eyes on the prize.

 

[Donjeta]

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Jahi-McMath-is-safe-receiving-nutrients-5118175.php

As for the costs, Dolan said the family is being helped by charitable donations and organizations.

JMO but if the new hospital sends the family a bill, they're totally cynical and unethical, even more so than they already are. MOO. It's bad enough that they delude and lie to a family in crisis, operate on a deceased patient and offer the family of a dead teenager false hope but if they let the family bankrupt themselves believing their lies and false hopes the hospital should be closed for good.

:cow: :cow:

 

[Leilei]

50 k is not going to go far to pay for a care of a brain dead person.
While the person is already legally dead, it's hard to keep their body alive.
It's a lot of care involved.
If insurance won't pay, somebody has to.

They kind of bit themselves in the butt when they took her out of CHO. CHO was more than likely just eating the costs post 12/12. Now, her mom is responsible for everything. I don't know how long a charity is going to fund this, we're talking tens of thousands of dollars, maybe hundreds by the time it's over and done with, though I believe the doctor is doing this on a volunteer basis?

Thinking of how many living people could be helped is making me a little queasy.

 

[Isabelle]

K_Z, I've always had a strong feeling that she was rushed back to O.R. for ligation/ cauterization of bleeders.
As a nurse who has worked in MANY different intensive care settings, I know the space is really limited as far as surgical instrument packs, cautery units set up and blood transfusions would be all at the same time.

I would expect to see all of the above equipment, plus a CRNA and Anesthesiologist tubing her first, or maybe the Code was first and she would have been tubed there, of course.

But, having had post- op bleeders, we didn't leave them in ICU. OR staff came and together, we ran with our bleeding patient back to OR to the surgeon who had responsibility for the patient's post op course. Sometimes, well, you can imagine that there are still probably blood splatters on some recessed spotlights in some ICU units....

The reason the family may not have mentioned this in their disjointed narratives with " wandering truths" is because once she was out of PICU, she was out of their sight. You really can't talk much about something that went on behind O.R. doors, if you weren't in O.R., right?

I confess that O.R. was always like " another world" to me. I could not stand any part of it even as a student nurse... I avoided Surgical Rotation in Clinicals ha... but I am glad there are people like you who are there.

If she were taken to the OR to remedy the problem, I would think that information would have been in court papers presented and doctor assessments provided by CHO.

 

[Herat]

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Jahi-McMath-is-safe-receiving-nutrients-5118175.php



JMO but if the new hospital sends the family a bill, they're totally cynical and unethical, even more so than they already are. MOO. It's bad enough that they delude and lie to a family in crisis, operate on a deceased patient and offer the family of a dead teenager false hope but if they let the family bankrupt themselves believing their lies and false hopes the hospital should be closed for good.

:cow: :cow:

I don't think Dolan will allow that to happen. He wants there to be sunshine, flowers, rainbows, and happy thoughts on this side of the issue, and sending a bill might just interject some reality into this macabre pantomime.

 

[Herat]

If she were taken to the OR to remedy the problem, I would think that information would have been in court papers presented and doctor assessments provided by CHO.

Not necessarily.

The court was asked to address only what happened after her bleeding. What happened before is not the pervue of these current court actions and there are good reasons why it is inappropriate to introduce only bits of the entire medical record.

 

[ItsJustaName]

I hadn't thought of that ... that wrinkled hands on a 13 year old might be perceived as weight loss. With grandmother being a vocational nurse, wouldn't she have told her daughter that people don't loose weight on their fingers ... bone thin fingers in Hansel and Gretal with sagging skin? That doesn't sound right. Isn't that muscle tissue disintegration?

Is anyone being straight with the mother?

But you can lose weight from your fingers. I always know its time for a diet when my wedding ring starts getting tight.

 

[Donjeta]

If she were taken to the OR to remedy the problem, I would think that information would have been in court papers presented and doctor assessments provided by CHO.

There was little or nothing in the CHO statements about why Jahi became brain dead and what if anything was done prior to that and where. The hearings were not about medical malpractice so her management at the ICU and OR was not directly relevant. The purpose of the CHO statements was to determine that she was really brain dead and therefore considered deceased and not a suitable candidate for further surgery.

JMO. I believe there will be another court case later and all of those details will come out.

 

[Sonya610]

JMO but if the new hospital sends the family a bill, they're totally cynical and unethical, even more so than they already are. MOO. It's bad enough that they delude and lie to a family in crisis, operate on a deceased patient and offer the family of a dead teenager false hope but if they let the family bankrupt themselves believing their lies and false hopes the hospital should be closed for good.

:cow: :cow:

Well then I guess if the new facility expects the family to pay for anything then the family will just have to sue them too for all of the reasons you cited!

 

[Donjeta]

Well then I guess if the new facility expects the family to pay for anything then the family will just have to sue them too for all of the reasons you cited!

It just might turn out to be a little difficult to argue in court both that one hospital was evil for saying that Jahi is dead and couldn't be helped and another was evil for saying that Jahi is alive and could be saved.

 

[Herat]

We haven't heard much from New Beginnings Office Complex and Not-Brain-Dead Care Center have we?

 

[Harmony 2]

Good morning everyone!

Mod note:
We are allowing social media as long as it has to do with Jahi's condition, the hospital or related to the case.

Anything personal is OFF LIMITS. It must PERTAIN to the case.

Please contact me or an administrator, in a private message, if there are any questions or a need for clarification.

 

[Harmony 2]

The family and its lawyer have declined to give the name or general location of Jahi's current care facility, saying they have received threats of violence from members of the public who disagree with their handling of Jahi's case.

http://news.msn.com/us/brain-dead-calif-teen-undergoes-surgery