Who has right to tell Baby Joseph to die?
Moe Maraachli, center, with his son Joseph, reviews discharge plans with Dr. Robert Wilmott on April 21, 2011, at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis.
/ AP/SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center(CBS) For the parents of Baby Joseph, a 14-month-old child in a vegetative state, all they wanted was one more breath.
But Canadian doctors refused to perform a life-saving tracheotomy on the child, forcing his parents to rush to St. Louis for the procedure and setting off a trans-national debate on who has the right to live and who should make the call.
"I would say they think it's a miracle. It's absolutely astounding," said family friend Brother Paul O'Donnell. "He is on a lot less medication. He is doing phenomenal."
Doctors agree that no matter what care Baby Joseph receives, he will not survive the neurological disorder called Leigh Syndrome, a rare genetic disease which attacks the nervous system. It most often strikes children between three months and two years old. Victims lose motor skills, can have seizures and often suffer from impaired respiratory and kidney function. Most die within a year, but some live far longer.
Joseph's parents know the disease well. They lost an 18-month-old child to the same disease eight years ago. They felt a tracheotomy would help Baby Joseph live another six months and then die at home, as it had done for their other child.
But doctors at London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario, who treated Baby Joseph since October, felt he was in a permanent vegetative state and that his condition was deteriorating.
The family disagreed.
"This is a baby that when his father was talking to him on one side of the room he'd look to his father, and when his mother spoke he'd look to her," said O'Donnell, who also said he has seen the child throw temper tantrums when, for example, he gets changed when he doesn't want to.
The hospital planned to take him off of assisted breathing. His parents sued and lost in Canadian courts. So the Maraachlis turned to social media, eventually connecting with Rev. Frank Pavone of New York City-based Priests for Life. Pavone offered to pay for Baby Joseph's transfer to Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis.
St. Louis doctors said the tracheotomy they performed last month provides Joseph with increased mobility and comfort while providing a more stable airway. It protects his lungs from inhaled saliva or other material that could cause aspiration pneumonia. Doctors declined to predict if the procedure will extend Joseph's life but his family believes it could add months.
"So many people from the United States and Canada and all around the world have reached out, sent letters and called my family to let us know they were praying for us and thinking about us," his father Moe Maraachli said. "This has really helped our family through this hard time, to know there is so much kindness in the world."
Baby Joseph is now resting in his home in Windsor, Ontario.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Who should be allowed to decide Baby Joseph's fate - Canadian doctors or his parents?
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I certainly would not want the government dictating my role as a parent. But if I neglect that right then it is some one else's responsibility to protect my child. Which in this case I do not see. Does it say this child is in pain and should be allowed to be put out of his misery? It states he is responsive to his parents voices and the procedure was done to make him more comfortable. I would not judge these people. I could not imagine being in their shoes. I have a child (adopted) that at birth had no brain matter, hydrocephalus/shunted, trached, tube fed, epileptic etc. obviously his prognosis was grim. Now seven he is an awesome little boy. Yes he's delayed and his doctors fees are horrendous. But he runs and plays, talks and is continually growing more brain matter. The most important thing is he is happy! So who is to judge?
Keep government out of our lives.
But, what if the tables were turned and these parents weren't doing everything possible to make this child's life as comfortable as possible. Like the parents that refuse to give there child chemo, blood transfusions etc. When is it OK and when is it not? And whose right is it to judge? IMHO Let God or be God...............
by rocketjl: What 'we' can all say is true, is that socialist medicine in Canada does in fact have 'death panels' and is supported by the courts. That is what Obama is putting in place for us.
rocketjl: Your full of IT!!! How many American hospitals have turn away people because of some bogus reason when in reality they did not have insurance?
1. A lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court alleges a Delaware man suffered from permanent brain damage from a heart attack because the University of Pennsylvania Hospital turned him away for lack of insurance.
2. My father in law is a dialysis patient. He had his ''port'' cleaned out at U of M hospital in Ann Arbor. Three days later his arm and all down the side of his torso were purple. Concerned he went to a local hospital. Turns out ''port'' was punctured and he was bleeding internally. Local hospital said they didn't know what to do for him and sent him home.
3. THE mother of a man who took his own life an hour after being refused admission to Ney York's Frankston Hospital's psychiatric ward believes deficiencies in its electronic patient records system contributed to his death.
Now that's just three I googled in three minutes, should I go on?
At least if you are going to be disingenuous or out right lie about Obama's healthcare reforms or some other issue, try to be a little educated about it.