Texas Hospitals Overriding Parents' Desires (Updated)

UPDATE: Baby Knya died while she was still receiving medical treatment. (HT: Sherri)

HT: BlogsForTerri

Recently, there have been two cases where hospital personnel decided against the parents' wishes to discontinue treatment for a critically ill baby. Both times, the parents have fought the decision. One family has already lost (their baby died after being taken off life support). The other family is still fighting.

This past Thursday, Memorial Hermann Hospital informed the parents of Knya Dismuke-Howard that it would stop all medical treatment except for pain in ten days. Baby Knya (five months) suffers from leukemia and some sort of skin infection. Mr. and Mrs. Dismuke-Howard are looking for anothe hospital that will treat Knya.

I find this trend extremely disturbing. While at this stage of my thinking I recognize that there actually can be an appropriate time to remove life support, I maintain that it has to be a family decision. The medical team and facilities need to support the family in this difficult time, not be the ones to make the decision of removing life support, or force an already stressed family to go hunting for another hospital. If the family wants to continue fighting for their loved one's life, the hospital needs to support that. The reason is simple: no one can care about a child better than the loving parents. No matter how compassionate the medical team might be, they are not the parents. I also maintain that an individual who has given up the fight will die, no matter what heroic measures we take to save his life. Baby Knya has not given up. Her parents want to continue treating her. It is not the hospital's place to decide to do anything differently.