Holy shit. I just watched an interview with the father. He’s trying to get his son transferred to a hospital in the US:
Ontario Superior Court Justice Helen Rady ordered the couple to agree to take Joseph off the ventilator by 10 a.m. Monday.
He’s still alive right now:
Appeal efforts don’t look too good:
http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011/02/22/17365351.html
If they want to pay cash for the procedure in Detroit, go for it. No reason to do it on the government dime though when there is no chance it will accomplish anything. A private insurer would deny that a million times over.
They’re not even being allowed the option to pay cash for it, that’s the point. They’re not being given a choice.
Their hospital refused to perform the procedure because it is useless. The hospital is letting him stay on life support for now while the Detroit hospital reviews his case. If they don’t take him, I suppose they could leave him on life support forever but what would that accomplish? Not giving them the choice is wrong but so would be the taxpayers paying for an expensive procedure that accomplishes nothing except dying in a different place.
Now if Detroit takes him, and they are willing to pay cash for it, and the Canadian hospital still pulls the plug, that’s fucked up.
They know it’s useless, they originally asked the hospital to perform a tracheotomy “which would open up a direct airway through an incision in Joseph’s trachea and make it possible to bring the baby home” to die.
The hospital refused because that might lead to an infection, which could kill him. :ham: :ham: :ham:
They’re not trying to get him transferred to the US to save his life; they’re trying to get him transferred to a hospital where the parents have the final say how and when their baby dies, not the court.
I’m surprised the courts have that much power up there that they can overrule the family. I suppose it’s kind of a necessary evil when the families can request all kinds of unhelpful and unnecessary shit on the taxpayer dime. I say the courts’ power should be limited to whatever the gov’t pays for.
Either way, if I’m the patient, I’d rather take my chances with the court system than have to fight a private insurer whose viability depends on terminal patients dying quickly. But that’s an argument for another time.
canadians are savages.
the real tragedy here is the child’s state. considering the family had a daughter suffer the same fate only makes this worse.
as for the legal stuff, it’s neither here nor there as far as i’m concerned. the boy is going to die soon regardless of what decision is made.
They should just start preparing to move on, either to have another child or to adopt.
The baby is now in a US hospital and should get a tracheotomy this week, then transferred to a nursing facility closer their home.
‘‘The parents are saying, ‘Look, even if the diagnosis is fatal, let’s give him the best care he can get’,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re saying, ‘This is our child. We believe his life is worth extending’.’’
“We’re not saying that people should be kept alive at any cost. Nor are we saying that there’s any specific treatment plan here that we’re imposing,” he said. “What we’re saying is give the baby reasonable care and listen to the parents (not the court) who want to give the baby a second chance in an American hospital.”
All expenses paid by a Catholic charity too.