St. Luke, pray for us.

I can't believe what's going on here. From another blog:
"the hospital ethics committee met the day before yesterday and concluded that Andrea's treatment (respirator and dialysis) should be discontinued. We have ten days to move her from that hospital or they will 'pull the plug' and let Andrea die."

Obviously this is a pretty involved story so you will have to read the whole post. I can't pretend to know all sides of this.

John called the sister, Melanie, and was told: "her sister [Andrea] recently had surgery for a heart condition. After surgery, she developed an infection and that's why she's so weak and needs a respirator to breathe. Again, her sister is not brain damaged, she can speak, and she does not want the hospital to let her die."

"If what Melanie Childers has told me is correct," writes John, "we've got a situation where a hospital that claims to provide 'ethical, compassionate and quality care' is pulling a woman's respirator and dialysis against her wishes and the wishes of her family after a doctor at their facility has said she might be able to recover.


Link. If this is anything close to the truth of what is going on, it's a very frightening demostration of the weak being put behind the able. Any time money is the lowest common denominator the interests of selfishness will be served.

And to think. St. Luke's is right across the street. This poor woman is lying in a bed with a 10 day countdown going on her only several hundred feet away from me. And she doesn't want to die...

Comments

Anonymous said…
My close friend is this woman's niece. Years ago, the doctors said Andrea was terminal. Yet, it is now 2006, and this woman who is still alive and clearly not wanting to die is on the countdown. She knows that within a matter of days, the doctors will be pulling the plug on her lifeline and on her life. Every so often when the medicine wears off, she reaches a lucid state where she clearly has made it known that she does not want to die.

It is awful what is going on -- my friend and her family are in such an emotional upheaval about this . . . and understandably so.

I just don't understand . . .
5:06 PM
Big Chris said…
It boggles the mind how they could do this to a person. Thank you for stopping by here, and know that she is in my prayers and hopefully other readers' also...
2:08 AM
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