Case 3 Medical Futility(Washington Post)\u2014A 17-month-old deaf, blind and terminally ill child on life support is the latest focus in an emotional fight against a Texas law that allows hospitals to withdraw care when a patient\u2019s ongoing treatment is declared \u201cmedically futile.\u201dSince Dec. 28, baby Emilio Gonzales has spent his days in a pediatric intensive care unit, mostly asleep from the powerful drugs he is administered, and breathing with the help of a respirator. Children\u2019s Hospital here declared his case hopeless last month and gave his mother 10 days, as legally required, to find another facility to take the baby. That deadline, extended once already, was due to expire Wednesday, at which time the hospital was to shut off Emilio\u2019s respirator. Without the machine, Emilio would die within minutes or hours, hospital officials have said.But the child\u2019s mother, Catarina Gonzales, 23, and lawyers representing a coalition of state and national disability rights advocates and groups that favor prolonging life persuaded a Travis County judge Tuesday to force the hospital to maintain Emilio\u2019s care while the search for a facility to accept him continues. The group\u2019s attempt last week to persuade a federal judge to intervene in the case failed.County Probate Judge Guy Herman appointed a guardian ad litem, or attorney, to represent Emilio\u2019s interests and issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting Children\u2019s Hospital from removing life-sustaining care from the child. He set an April 19 hearing on the mother\u2019s and lawyers\u2019 request for a temporary injunction against the hospital.\u201cI believe there is a hospital that is going to accept my son,\u201d said Gonzales following the brief hearing. \u201cI just want to spend time with my son\u2026 . I want to let him die naturally without someone coming up and saying we\u2019re going to cut off on a certain day.\u201dMichael Regier, senior vice president for legal affairs of the Seton Family of Hospitals, which includes Children\u2019s Hospital, said the child\u2019s condition continues to deteriorate although he has not met the criteria to be declared brain dead. He said the hospital has contacted 31 facilities \u201cwithout any single indication of interest in taking the transfer.\u201dGonzales and her lawyers are seeking a transfer for the child, diagnosed with a terminal neurometabolic disorder called Leigh\u2019s disease, to a hospital that will perform a tracheotomy and insert a feeding tube so that he can live out his life in the facility or at home with his mother. But Children\u2019s Hospital doctors have declared that continuing treatment is potentially painful and is prolonging the child\u2019s suffering.Emilio\u2019s case has drawn interest and support nationwide, including from the siblings of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who was in a persistent vegetative state and who died in 2005 after doctors, acting on a court order, removed her life-sustaining feeding tube.Texas\u2019s six-year-old \u201cfutile-care\u201d law is one of two in the country that allow a hospital\u2019s ethics committee to declare the care of a terminally ill patient to be of no benefit and to discontinue care within a certain time frame. The patient\u2019s family or guardian must be informed in advance of the ethics committee meeting and must be allowed to participate. The family must also be given 10 days to find a medical facility willing to accept their terminal relative. After that period, the hospital may withdraw life support. Virginia gives a family 14 days to transfer a patient once a futile-care decision is made.*
\nDo you agree with the hospital\u2019s reasons for wanting to withdraw care? Do you agree with the child\u2019s parents? Explain. Do you believe that life should be preserved at all costs (the sanctity of life view)? Why or why not? Do you believe that quality of life is more important than the preservation of life in cases like this? If so, how would you justify that view?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Case 3 Medical Futility(Washington Post)\u2014A 17-month-old deaf, blind and terminally ill child on life support is the latest focus in an emotional fight against a Texas law that allows hospitals to withdraw care when a patient\u2019s ongoing treatment is declared \u201cmedically futile.\u201dSince Dec. 28, baby Emilio Gonzales has spent his days in a pediatric intensive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"disciplines":[55],"paper_types":[],"tagged":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/28583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/questions"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/28583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=28583"},{"taxonomy":"paper_types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/paper_types?post=28583"},{"taxonomy":"tagged","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tagged?post=28583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}