That is an excellent point. And also a good argument for increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of medical staff (particularly physicians). In a case like this, the truth may be better heard if it’s coming from a doctor who shares the family’s background and is less likely to be seen as Other by the family members.
This is sad on so many levels. This girl is dead. I generally agree with many things that the religious right advocate, but they have their heads inserted firmly in their asses on this one.
Not to mention, if the hospital or staff tried to bill for those procedures, I imagine they’d be putting themselves in a sticky legal situation in re billing for unnecessary procedures on a corpse. I can’t imagine the insurance company paying up quietly for such procedures.
I’m also one of those who thought initially that we were discussing a brain-damaged individual, not a corpse. I appreciate all the interesting information that’s been posted.
They’d be committing insurance fraud. So any care done after December 12 can’t be billed for. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that someone isn’t paying for it. At least now that the body’s been transferred elsewhere it’s just religious nutjobs funding the cost (at the price of their donations not going to help actual LIVING children who desperate need medical care, of course). Prior to that, the money would have had to come out of the hospital’s general operating funds, which means everyone else being treated at the hospital or donating money to the hospital was paying for it.
Is cutting a hole in a dead person’s throat (not for the purposes of embalming) desecration/mutilation of a corpse, I wonder? Might be a legal issue right there.
I can’t see anyone prosecuting doctors and hospitals for mutilation/desecration if there is even the tiniest of valid excuses. For instance, to remove a pacemaker from the deceased, that sort of thing. Yeah, it’s a “surgical procedure on a corpse,” but it has a legitimate purpose.
District Attorneys have a lot more important stuff to worry about. A jury would be very hard to persuade (or predict!) and it’s not good p.r. either.
You have to feel tremendous pity for the poor parents, but the simple objective fact is that they’re in denial. A moral judgment here is much more elusive than the straightforward medical one, however.
In related news, the exact opposite scenario is playing out in Texas. The family wants to pull life support from a woman in an irreversible vegetative state, and moreover her living will made the same express request, but the hospital refuses. The reason? She is in the first trimester of pregnancy, with a non-viable fetus that likely never will be viable.
As legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin put it, this is “abortion politics” at its ugliest, with the religious right wing zealots who have no trouble at all making moral judgments for all the rest of us trampling all over basic rights and human dignity.
From what I’ve gathered, the hospital has claimed that it was not at all clear that the family legitimately had a place willing to take her body, with or without a feeding tube and tracheostomy. Supposing that to be true, or at least something the hospital strongly believed to be true, if I were in their position I would refuse to perform the procedures not out of an intransigent insistence that I’m right, but out of fear that this would open additional avenues for appeal (“If she’s dead, like you claim, why did you perform these procedures? Do you often perform operations on dead people?”) prolonging the length of time her body would be around. That would not just be a waste of their resources, but an incredible health risk to their other patients. Nosocomial infections are prevalent enough without the addition of a slowly rotting corpse (which now has a direct line from it’s bacteria laden gut to the outside).
The only moral judgements I’m willing to make are aimed at those people who are stringing the family along by offering them the false hope that their daughter could ever possibly get better. It sounds like the family is beginning to accept that that’s not going to happen, though.
Yes, I’ve heard about that case, too, and am equally disgusted by it. The deceased woman is only 14 weeks pregnant - nowhere near the point of fetal viability. They’re looking at 10 more weeks minimum to even have a hope of fetal viability (and 14 weeks is a more realistic estimate). And there’s every reason to think the fetus’s brain has been as badly damaged by anoxia as the woman’s has. What’s the point? The Texas law is ridiculous. In these cases, I’d support allowing the family to make the decision - and in this case, the family wants to discontinue support. (If another family chose differently, I’d be OK with that as well, as long as they understood how poor the odds are of succeeding to keep the fetus alive to the point of viability - and if later testing showed intrauterine fetal demise, it would definitely be time to shut down the attempt.)
I can get behind that.
Another California paper reported that the hospital is saying that Jahi’s mother was told to discourage Jahi from speaking after the surgery, that Jahi was supposed to use a white board to communicate – no talking, no laughing, and Jahi was talking and laughing and mom didn’t discourage her.
A local mom in her 20’s died after a tonsillectomy several years ago, reportedly because she raised her voice.
After reading what WhyNot and others have shared about what happens to our bodies when our brain dies, I wonder if anyone bothered to explain this to Jahi’s parents, two or three times if necessary. I’m with everyone else who didn’t understand “brain dead” and thought it wasn’t much different from a coma.
I agree. These are the same species of sanctimonious ideologues who insinuated themselves into the Terri Schiavo tragedy and are the driving force behind almost all the malignant anti-abortion politics we see today. It’s never about empathy or reality, much less anybody’s rights – it’s always about their evangelical convictions.
I read that on CNN as well, but it was in the comments section, not the actual article, so I wasn’t sure if that was verified or not.
Even if her parents did not initially understand the implications of brain death when she first went into cardiac arrest I don’t see how they couldn’t now unless they’re in incredibly deep denial (which it sounds like they are).
If what’s been said is true- that they did not follow post op recovery instructions- then the guilt her parents feel must be horrendous. I’m assuming that’s why they can’t let her go even as she decomposes in front of them.
It’s a horrible, horrible tragedy all around and I hope her parents find a way to cope and find peace and that Jahi gets buried or cremated with some dignity.
I wonder if there are any siblings. None have been mentioned as far as I’m aware, but if there are it does not sound like their parents will be able to help them through the grief in a constructive way.
I’ve read there are two younger sisters. What a nightmare this must be for those kids!
I don’t think it can be verified at this point. The hospital can’t say anything for legal reasons, and if the parents did violate the post-operative care instructions, they certainly aren’t going to admit to that now.
An interesting piece from the LA Times: Lawyer thinks families, not doctors, should determine death.
This idea needs to be squashed NOW. There are good reasons why a declaration of death can only be made by properly trained and licensed medical professionals!
That’s interesting. I’m happy to say that I’ve seen no mention of race in any of the stories about this situation - and plenty of people in our area are ready to bring it up at the drop of a hat. But I can certainly see it being a factor.
Here is an article from the Christian Science Monitor on the definition of death issue. It sounds like she is dead under California law. If the judge had said so (the article implies he chickened out) this could have been over right away also.
That’s another reason to think this won’t happen again - another judge won’t screw it up.
I don’t think she ever left the hospital, so I don’t think this is it. The guilt comes from pressing the girl to do the operation. We’re not going to know until the lawsuit is tried about what happened post-operatively, and if the hospital responded to an obvious crisis correctly, but it certainly wasn’t the responsibility of the parents to do so.
My understanding is that the procedure was requested to make it possible to move the body, and so would not be done before a place was found. That would also eliminate the infection issue. If that were an issue, it would be an excellent thing for the hospital to point out - and I don’t think it could be considered as invading anyone’s privacy.
Around here this hasn’t been politicized, thank Og. Though for all I know Fox News is accusing California liberal doctors of killing black people.