Who makes end-of-life decisions, family, or doctors? Ontario court to decide

[Pax_et_Bonum]

Who makes end-of-life decisions, family, or doctors? Ontario court to decide
Rebecca Millette Thu May 19 17:53 EST Bioethics

TORONTO, Ontario, May 19, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The question of whether end-of-life decisions, such as whether or not to withdraw life-support, should be made at the discretion of a doctor or family members is at stake in the Rasouli case, taken before Ontario’s Court of Appeal yesterday. The court’s decision could dramatically change how these important decisions are made in the province in cases such as the much-publicized Baby Joseph case.

Doctors at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, where 59-year-old patient Hassan Rasouli has been since surgery in October, say the Iranian immigrant is in a persistent vegetative state, with no hope of recovery. They are appealing a Superior Court decision from April that ruled the doctors needed the family’s permission, or permission from Ontario’s Consent and Capacity board, in order to remove Rasouli from life-support.

The Rasouli family disagrees with the doctors’ diagnosis. They say that their father, who suffered bacterial meningitis after surgery to remove a brain tumor, is able to communicate with them and shows progress in his recovery, although he presently requires the assistance of a ventilator and feeding tube.

“He talks to us with his eyes,” said Rasouli’s 27-year-old daughter, Mojgan. “We want my father alive.”

Rasouli’s son, 23-year-old Mehran, said
lifesitenews.com/news/who-makes-end-of-life-decisions-family-or-doctors-ontario-court-to-decide?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=50335e2b42-LifeSiteNews_com_Canada_Full_Text_02_19_2011&utm_medium=email

 

[Pax_et_Bonum]

When did the servants become masters?This death panel Naziism is new to Canada-It started with a BABY from London Ontario and the Mengeles wanted to pull the tubes and let him choke to death.The Priests for Life intervened and took him to an AMERICAN hospital in St Louis for a tracheotomy so the little fellow can die in the bosom of his family.Please pray for us.If you guys get Obamacare this will be S.O.P.

 

[Pax_et_Bonum]

If this goes into effect Canadians will refuse to be hospitalized just as they are refusing in Belgium and Holland.This is murder-involuntary Euthanasia-carry a cad that says you absolutely refuse to have the plug pulled,no euthanasia and NO REPEAT NO Apnoea test as it causes irreversible brain Damage.

News
Print Article | Email Friend | Reprint Permissions “Brain Death” Test Causes Brain Necrosis and Kills Patients: Neurologist to Rome Conference
by LifeSiteNews.com
Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:15 EST
Comments (0)

By Hilary White - Rome correspondent

ROME, February 25, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - One of the medical world’s key diagnostic tools for determining “brain death” preliminary to organ retrieval, actually causes severe brain damage it purports to determine, neurologist Dr. Cicero Coimbra told attendees at a conference held in Rome last week. With the so-called “apnoea test,” Coimbra said, brain damaged patients who might be recoverable are deprived of oxygen for up to ten minutes, rendering the injuries to the brain irreversible.

“Diagnostic protocols for brain death actually induce death in patients who could recover to normal life by receiving timely and scientifically based therapies,” Dr. Coimbra, head of the Neurology and Neurosurgery Department at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, told the participants at the “Signs of Life” conference on “brain death.”

Addressing an assembly of about 170 physicians, philosophers, ethicists, lawyers, students, journalists, and clergy, including two Catholic cardinals, Dr. Coimbra said that it is the apnoea test, routinely applied to patients who have suffered acute brain injuries, that frequently causes “brain necrosis,” or permanent and irrecoverable brain damage that is accepted as “brain death”.

The test is applied in emergency rooms or ICUs, often with an “organ procurement agent” standing by to ask relatives for approval for organ retrieval. A patient who needs assistance breathing is removed from the ventilator for up to ten minutes, cutting off oxygen to the brain and slowing the heart rate. If the patient fails to begin breathing without assistance after this time, he is declared “brain dead” and his organs may be legally removed.

Since the world-wide adoption of the “brain death” criteria, developed at Harvard University in 1968, Dr. Coimbra said, “The lives of thousands of human beings, including children, adolescents and young adults, are lost every year in each country.”

The premise of the standard Harvard Criteria for “brain death” is that lack of brain function implies absence of blood circulation to the brain, which is what causes brain necrosis, or the irreversible death of brain cells. But since the definition of the Harvard Criteria, he explained, medical scientists have discovered that the absence of discernable brain function cited by the criteria is not the same as “brain necrosis,” or true brain death. In many cases where there is no discernable brain activity, patients have recovered with appropriate treatment.

lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2009/feb/09022504

 

[LemonAndLime]

The problem with letting the family decide whether or not to turn life-support off is that they will never want to. Never want to accept that there is nothing they can do. Sure doctors do get it wrong sometimes, but relatives are not doctors, and doctors are not relatives. I’m not saying here that relatives should have no say, but relatives often struggle to accept that there is nothing that can be done.

Also, many relatives had a sick motive behind wanting to keep someone alive, or turning off the machine. Financial interests. In the UK, the family’s wishes are taken into account and have laws protecting them.

For example, a Jehovah witness’ child was going to die unless she got a blood transfusion. The family said no. The doctors applies to the High Court and got an order removing parental responsibility from the parent and gave them the legal right to give the child the treatment. The child survived. I could tell you many more examples.

The family’s wishes in terms of end-of-life are not always the best ones, that is something to keep in mind. That family of the child wanted the child to die and for the doctors to remove all treatment.

 

[HickmanJosh]

doctors deciding weather patients live or die, whatever happened to the Hippocratic oath?

 

[St_Francis]

Extraordinary treatment can be refused or stopped, and one of the criteria is financial burden. If the government is paying for the treatment, it seems that rationing would become perfectly moral under Church teaching.

However, the issue of organ donation, which I have only recently found out about, seems like a horror flick by Mengele. In addition to the life issues, the financial angle is that the donor’s insurance pays for the sustaining of life, and the hospital gets the money for the organ(s), presumably from the recipient’s insurance.

I really think a system in which health care is provided by the Church, through religious orders, would be sooooooooo very much better than anything we have now.

 

[laszlo]

The real problem is that the greed deformed our lives, and the cost of the medical care is no available for almost everyone, the community is taxed by the greed in the name of the medicare.

This is deadly wrong, but the question is still: should the taxpayers pay for it or not.

 

[bellasbane]

I really think a system in which health care is provided by the Church, through religious orders, would be sooooooooo very much better than anything we have now.

Absolutely! And why not?

I don’t know very much about how the Canadian law works, but why can’t an independent nongovernmental organization like the Catholic Church simply start a hospital that takes in these sorts of cases - the ones the government decides are not worth funding? I mean, is there some law that says the government MUST pay all medical expenses, this person MUST remain in this particular institution and life support MUST be removed, or is it only that the GOVERNMENT won’t pay for it anymore.

I seems to me that all the talk of “death panels” with regard to Obamacare is a deception to make people believe they are unempowered. God forbid the masses get the idea they can take independent collective action and create a nonprofit health cooperative without some sort of top-down control from beneficent “masters” or the government. This is a message the both parties should promote rather than pandering to the entrenched for-profit health insurance lobbies.

If someone can point out a prohibition in any of the health care laws to anything I just suggested, please let me know!

Peace

 

[laszlo]

I seems to me that all the talk of “death panels” with regard to Obamacare is a deception to make people believe they are unempowered. God forbid the masses get the idea they can take independent collective action and create a nonprofit health cooperative without some sort of top-down control from beneficent “masters” or the government. This is a message the both parties should promote rather than pandering to the entrenched for-profit health insurance lobbies.

The biggest problem is the evil called liability. If anyone in the health care makes any mistake the whole community is responsible through the insurance.

The similar big problem is the intellectual property bought by money. People or organizations who pay for the research and development regain multiple profits for this investment through the intellectual property. This true either for equipment and the medicine.

The thirst problem is the monopolized health care, only licensed individuals can practice health care.

No party makes or at least intends to make anything against the roots of the problem.

 

[Pax_et_Bonum]

The problem with letting the family decide whether or not to turn life-support off is that they will never want to. Never want to accept that there is nothing they can do. Sure doctors do get it wrong sometimes, but relatives are not doctors, and doctors are not relatives. I’m not saying here that relatives should have no say, but relatives often struggle to accept that there is nothing that can be done.

Also, many relatives had a sick motive behind wanting to keep someone alive, or turning off the machine. Financial interests. In the UK, the family’s wishes are taken into account and have laws protecting them.

For example, a Jehovah witness’ child was going to die unless she got a blood transfusion. The family said no. The doctors applies to the High Court and got an order removing parental responsibility from the parent and gave them the legal right to give the child the treatment. The child survived. I could tell you many more examples.

The family’s wishes in terms of end-of-life are not always the best ones, that is something to keep in mind. That family of the child wanted the child to die and for the doctors to remove all treatment.

Your comparison of JW minors and their heath treatment is apples and oranges compared to end of life decisions.A parent does NOT have the right to deny treatment to a minor child no matter the religion.The medical community sensitive to this issue has developed surgeries and procedures that do NOT require blood transfusion.I doni know where you got your uninformed malarkey about doctors not wanting to pull the plug-Google Belgium and Holland.I gave you two examples that happened in Canada.
The Families wishes are the only ones that count(except as above).-where do you come up with these uninformerd Truisms and generalizations-what is your background.If you are so concerned have a living will drawn up.I carry in my wallet that under no circumstances is any medical personnnel to make this call ONLY my son and that NO aponea tests ever be conducted as it causes irreversible brain damage.Which coincidentally causes disputed brain death making ones organs ripe for harvesting.

 

[Pax_et_Bonum]

Absolutely! And why not?

I don’t know very much about how the Canadian law works, but why can’t an independent nongovernmental organization like the Catholic Church simply start a hospital that takes in these sorts of cases - the ones the government decides are not worth funding? I mean, is there some law that says the government MUST pay all medical expenses, this person MUST remain in this particular institution and life support MUST be removed, or is it only that the GOVERNMENT won’t pay for it anymore.

I seems to me that all the talk of “death panels” with regard to Obamacare is a deception to make people believe they are unempowered. God forbid the masses get the idea they can take independent collective action and create a nonprofit health cooperative without some sort of top-down control from beneficent “masters” or the government. This is a message the both parties should promote rather than pandering to the entrenched for-profit health insurance lobbies.

If someone can point out a prohibition in any of the health care laws to anything I just suggested, please let me know!

Peace

There are tons of Catholic Hospitals in Canada buy Caesar wants them to perform abortion,sterilization and sex -change-ALL of which they refuse to do.If Caesar gets his way-no more Catholic Hospitals.Period.Catholic doctors cannot refuse to prescribe abortificients like the pill or the UB40 drug nor refer patients to abortion clinics.Eventually there will be no devout Catholic Doctors.Druggists nor Hospitals in this country and the USA is following in lockstep.

 

[Pax_et_Bonum]

`:The problem with letting the family decide whether or not to turn life-support off is that they will never want to. Never want to accept that there is nothing they can do. Sure doctors do get it wrong sometimes, but relatives are not doctors, and doctors are not relatives. I’m not saying here that relatives should have no say, but relatives often struggle to accept that there is nothing that can be done. ``

Thank you Hypocrates.I don;t think I`ver read anything more bloodless on these fora:

Standing jet ready to take Baby Joseph to any willing U.S. Hospital
BY JOHN-HENRY WESTEN
Fri Mar 04, 2011 15:39 ESTComments (12)Tags: Frank Pavone, Joseph Maraachli, Priests For Life

Moe Maraachli with a photo of his son Joseph.
STATEN ISLAND, NY, March 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Priests for Life, the American Center for Law and Justice, the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network and other pro-life and pro-family organizations have been negotiating with hospitals across the United States for more than a week to have them agree to admit baby Joseph Maraachli. Baby Joseph is the one-year-old in a London Ontario hospital whose doctors are seeking to remove his ventilator against his parents’ wishes.

To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, has said that “for the most part, [the hospitals] have shown compassion but unfortunately, so far, not one has agreed to take Baby Joseph. The family is asking only to have a simple procedure performed to allow their son to breathe on his own.”

A hospital committee in Canada has declared that efforts on behalf of Baby Joseph are futile and a court decision has supported the hospital’s decision. The parents are asking for a second opinion from an American institution.
forums.catholic-questions.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=7897065

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Baby Joseph saved from life support removal – transfer to Michigan hospital likely
BY JOHN-HENRY WESTEN
Mon Feb 21, 2011 12:12 ESTComments (19)Tags: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Joseph Maraachli, Ontario

Baby Joseph Maraachli and his father Moe.
To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.

LONDON, Ontario, February 17, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - One-year-old Joseph Maraachli of Windsor, Ontario, who was to have his life support removed Monday at 10 am. against his parents’ wishes, will now not die on the day that Ontario residents celebrate as Family Day. A hustle by pro-life and anti-euthanasia groups resulted in a change in legal counsel, which has led to at least a temporary stay of removal of the child’s ventilator.

Alex Schadenberg, head of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, informed LifeSiteNews Sunday evening that negotiations are underway to transfer Joseph to a hospital in Michigan.

In a statement released today, London Health Sciences Centre said it has received a request from a Michigan hospital “to review Baby Joseph Maraachli’s medical information regarding the feasibility and appropriateness of a potential patient transfer.”

“Our focus at this time is to work with the family on a patient care plan and to continue to provide compassionate and dignified care and comfort to Baby Joseph,” said the statement.

Tomorrow’s scheduled vigil in support of Baby Joseph and the Maraachli family is still happening at 9 am. outside Victoria Hospital at Wellington and Commissioners in London, Ontario.

To make a donation to cover the legal costs please click here.

 

[Pax_et_Bonum]

Last week the Ontario Superior Court rejected an appeal by Josephs’ parents to bring him home where he can die under their care.

“Monday at 10 am. they will kill my baby,” Moe Maraachli, Joseph’s father, had told LifeSiteNews shortly after the ruling. “There’s no more humanity. There’s no more chance. I’ve tried everything for him. No more appeals, nothing.”

Joseph was taken to Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario in October where he was diagnosed with severe neurological issues. Doctors gave him no chance of recovery. Moe and his wife Sana have asked doctors to perform a tracheotomy so that they could take Joseph home, but the doctors refused, saying the procedure was too risky.

The Maraachlis’ daughter died from similar complications eight years ago, but in that case doctors performed a tracheotomy and they were able to take her home. Joseph’s parents want the same for him.

But in January, the Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario sided with the hospital, and a date for removing Joseph’s respirator was set. The family was able to hold it off by filing an appeal with the Superior Court.

Superior Court Justice Helen Rady also sided with the hospital, saying that Joseph is in a permanent vegetative state with no brain stem reflex. However, Joseph’s family members have said that the boy still responds to stimuli.

In a press release earlier Sunday, Campaign Life Coalition noted that “Baby Joseph (was) to be killed on Family Day.”“I don’t understand it. Do doctors’ rights now trump parental rights?” asked Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition. “And what about the dignity of the child to die in the loving arms of his parents at home? This outrageous stripping of parental rights is very worrisome.”

“Ihttp://www.lifesitenews.com/news/baby-joseph-saved-from-life-support-removal-transfer-to-michigan-hospital-l/

Baby Joseph will likely get tracheotomy by end of this week: U.S. hospital
BY PATRICK B. CRAINE
Tue Mar 15, 2011 07:51 ESTComments (9)

To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.

ST. LOUIS, Missouri, March 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Baby Joseph Maraachli will likely get the medical procedure his parents have sought that should let them to take him out of hospital, an official at his new medical facility announced Monday.

Dr. Robert Wilmott, head of pediatrics at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri told media late Monday that Joseph “likely will have a tracheotomy performed by the end of this week to facilitate his transition to a skilled nursing facility.”

The surgery involves a slit in the throat to allow a breathing tube to be inserted into the airway. The tube allows for suction of fluid out of the lungs, creates a safe and stable way to use a mechanical ventilator, and is more comfortable for the child.

The parents have been asking for this procedure in hopes that they could take Joseph home. The Maraachli’s daughter Zina died from a similar neurological disorder eight years ago, and in that case the family took her home after doctors performed the simple procedure. They now want the same for Joseph.

Cardinal Glennon hospital, however, said Monday that they hope to get Joseph into nursing care close to the family’s home in Windsor, but in the U.S.

In the same statement, hospital spokesman Bob Davidson said they have cancelled a press conference for Tuesday morning because “there is not yet a firm treatment plan” for Joseph.

Joseph was airlifted to the hospital Sunday night with the help of the U.S.-based Priests for Life, who are also covering Joseph’s U.S. medical expenses and his family’s accommodations.

Joseph’s father, Moe Maraachli, thanked supporters Monday in a video posted to the Save Baby Joseph Facebook page. “Thanks to all of you who pushed [the London hospital] to accept the transfer [of] my son,” he said. “I want to say I am never giving up.”

Moe also wrote on the Facebook page that he was finally able to pray with Joseph privately in St. Louis. Joseph’s previous hospital in Ontario, London Health Sciences Centre, had required the family to be overseen by security.

The London hospital, where Joseph was treated since October, had refused to perform the tracheostomy and sought to remove his ventilator against his parents’ wishes.Dr. Paul Byrne, a fifty-year veteran in the field of neonatology based in Ohio, however, has said that Joseph should have had a tracheostomy “a long time ago.” He also insisted that he has never seen a need to remove a child’s ventilator. “If a baby has a disease process that’s so bad that they’re going to die, then they die on the ventilator anyway,” he explained.

While the London hospital had declared that the baby was in a persistent vegetative state, doctors at Cardinal Glennon have told Father Pavone that he is primarily breathing on his own and is responding to touch.

lifesitenews.com/news/baby-joseph-will-likely-get-tracheotomy-us-hospital/

Now ask yourself a simple question would I want these disinterested clinicians allowing my baby to choke to death or would I want my baby to receive a minor operation that will allow him to die at home with his family.This was a faceless Death Panel just like you can expect under Obamacare.

 

[Pax_et_Bonum]

If the government is paying for the treatment, it seems that rationing would become perfectly moral under Church teaching.The government``isnt paying squat .There is no such thing as socialized Health Care in Canada.WE the people pay for it through our high taxes-case of beer $40-and a surtax.
We pay less of a percentage of our GNP and everyone is covered.Americans pay on average 2 per cent more of their GNP and 60,000,000 citizens live with NO health care period.Canadians live on average 2.5 years longer than our Doodle cousins.

 

[Pax_et_Bonum]

The problem with letting the family decide whether or not to turn life-support off is that they will never want to. Never want to accept that there is nothing they can do. Sure doctors do get it wrong sometimes, but relatives are not doctors, and doctors are not relatives. I’m not saying here that relatives should have no say, but relatives often struggle to accept that there is nothing that can be done.

Also, many relatives had a sick motive behind wanting to keep someone alive, or turning off the machine. Financial interests. In the UK, the family’s wishes are taken into account and have laws protecting them.

For example, a Jehovah witness’ child was going to die unless she got a blood transfusion. The family said no. The doctors applies to the High Court and got an order removing parental responsibility from the parent and gave them the legal right to give the child the treatment. The child survived. I could tell you many more examples.

The family’s wishes in terms of end-of-life are not always the best ones, that is something to keep in mind. That family of the child wanted the child to die and for the doctors to remove all treatment.

Worth repeating since you obviously didn;t read it:

When did the servants become masters?This death panel Naziism is new to Canada-It started with a BABY from London Ontario and the Mengeles wanted to pull the tubes and let him choke to death.The Priests for Life intervened and took him to an AMERICAN hospital in St Louis for a tracheotomy so the little fellow can die in the bosom of his family.Please pray for us.If you guys get Obamacare this will be S.O.P.

 

[St_Francis]

If the government is paying for the treatment, it seems that rationing would become perfectly moral under Church teaching.The government``isnt paying squat .There is no such thing as socialized Health Care in Canada.WE the people pay for it through our high taxes-case of beer $40-and a surtax.
We pay less of a percentage of our GNP and everyone is covered.Americans pay on average 2 per cent more of their GNP and 60,000,000 citizens live with NO health care period.Canadians live on average 2.5 years longer than our Doodle cousins.

It is my understanding that people in Canada elect people to govern for them and make rules regarding things like the allocation of medical resources? and that these elected officials collect the money and write the checks? and that these elected people are collectively known as the government?

 

[bellasbane]

There are tons of Catholic Hospitals in Canada buy Caesar wants them to perform abortion,sterilization and sex -change-ALL of which they refuse to do.If Caesar gets his way-no more Catholic Hospitals.Period.Catholic doctors cannot refuse to prescribe abortificients like the pill or the UB40 drug nor refer patients to abortion clinics.Eventually there will be no devout Catholic Doctors.Druggists nor Hospitals in this country and the USA is following in lockstep.

Pax et Bonum,

I’m very confused about your post. If a hospital doesn’t take any money from the state, how can the state dictate what sort of services they provide?

"If Ceasar gets his way… Sounds to me like Ceasar hasn’t gotten his way yet. On the other hand, it sounds as if Catholic hospitals were barred in some way from taking these near end-of-life cases.

I’m sorry. I’m just really really confused

 

[Phemie]

There are tons of Catholic Hospitals in Canada buy Caesar wants them to perform abortion,sterilization and sex -change-ALL of which they refuse to do.If Caesar gets his way-no more Catholic Hospitals.Period.Catholic doctors cannot refuse to prescribe abortificients like the pill or the UB40 drug nor refer patients to abortion clinics.Eventually there will be no devout Catholic Doctors.Druggists nor Hospitals in this country and the USA is following in lockstep.

Are there really hospitals in Canada that do gyne surgery but don’t do sterilizations? I worked in a Catholic hospital and was patient in a few and they all did them, even back in the 70s.

 

[Pax_et_Bonum]

The state manages the taxpayers money-the hospotals are not owned bu the state nor are doctors nurses or medical personnel employees of the State.The State receives its monies from the taxes that the people pay.The State is merely the bookkeeper and does not make medical policy the College of physicians does,With younger and less patient oriented and more clinical physicians flooding the market some have had the audacity to apply to the courts to overturn living wills and the wishes of family menbers,We have no HMOs who ration medical interventions-ours is more a triage system wherein everyone will get treated but the worst cases take precedence-this nazi like unilateral decision making vis a vis "useless eaters’ is brand new and has only been tested in the courts three times-once successfully-this is however the thin edge of the wedge.
Please read the following for a clearer understanding:

DiManno: End-of-life decision rests with family, not doctors
Published On Thu May 19 2011EmailPrint (60)
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By Rosie DiManno
Columnist
When my father was in an irreversible coma, a neurologist broke the news bluntly and briskly. There’s no brain activity, she said. There’s no hope, she said. End it now.

What she meant was, remove the life support.

But I did not believe her. When I touched my father’s gangrenous foot, he flinched.

“That doesn’t matter,’’ she said, arguing that the movement was a muscle reflex. I was convinced my father felt pain, which indicated some level of brain function, however minimal. And I would not hurry my dad to death, nor sentence my mother to a lifetime of guilt by allowing her to sign the consent form that would permit ICU personnel to shut off the machines.

The doctor was displeased with what she clearly viewed as recalcitrance on my part. She mumbled something about physicians having the right to make these life-or-death decisions.

I went to the chief of the ICU and begged: Please don’t do this, not yet.

He looked over the brain scan imagery. “There’s some activity here still,’’ he concluded. “We won’t remove the life support until the family agrees it’s time.’’

The chief assured me — from his many decades of critical care experience — that I would sense when that time came; that my father’s failing body would let it be known.

I took that on faith, and he was right.

Two weeks later, after other complications had developed, my mother and I concurred that time had come — though the burden of execution, as I felt it, will never be lifted from my conscience.

Most people who find themselves in this horrible position — making end-of-life decisions for a loved one — do know when it’s time. For those incapable or unwilling to let go, perhaps because they disagree with the assessment of expert physicians — there must be some procedure for appeal that respects all parties, some higher court of consideration and review that can weigh the evidence in as nonconfrontational a way as is possible under such distressing circumstances.

It can’t be a unilateral decision by the attending physicians. They don’t have the right, morally. They shouldn’t have the right, legally.

That unconscious person is more than a patient. He or she is a human being for as long as a single breath can be taken, even when a machine is doing the breathing.

No doctor is God, though far too many seem to think otherwise. And yes, the ethical dilemmas are profound in a modern world where medical advances have blurred the definition of life, where debate rages over the difference between brain-dead and heart-dead — a distinction poorly understood by many who might some day have to confront the question of organ donation. It is not as simple, or obvious, as we have been led to believe.

thestar.com/news/crime/article/994348–dimanno-end-of-life-decision-rests-with-family-not-doctors

 

[curlycool89]

I don’t know very much about how the Canadian law works, but why can’t an independent nongovernmental organization like the Catholic Church simply start a hospital that takes in these sorts of cases - the ones the government decides are not worth funding? I mean, is there some law that says the government MUST pay all medical expenses, this person MUST remain in this particular institution and life support MUST be removed, or is it only that the GOVERNMENT won’t pay for it anymore.

It’s called the Canada Health Act; it outlaws private payments or co-pay on certain treatments (not things like vision or dental for example). Although, the constitutionality is oft-questioned, and it’s fairly well known that out-of-pocket payments that are forbidden happen frequently in Quebec. The provisions are not well enforced, and there have been calls lately to completely ignore it.

There are tons of Catholic Hospitals in Canada buy Caesar wants them to perform abortion,sterilization and sex -change-ALL of which they refuse to do.If Caesar gets his way-no more Catholic Hospitals.Period.Catholic doctors cannot refuse to prescribe abortificients like the pill or the UB40 drug nor refer patients to abortion clinics.Eventually there will be no devout Catholic Doctors.Druggists nor Hospitals in this country and the USA is following in lockstep.

Actually, this issue has come up with a hospital called St. Elizabeth’s in Humboldt, Saskatchewan. The hospital was run by the Catholic bishops of Saskatchewan. The hospital refused to perform sterilizations (the issue came up in 2006). Well, to make a long story short, Humboldt has a new hospital as of 2 years ago, and it’s no longer run by the Catholic bishops.