Saturday, August 16, 2008

Battle Over Living Will

The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court could decide this month if the hospital can take a 97-year-old woman off life support over the objections of her only child.

The neurological consultant says there's no sign of brain activity.
The daughter says her mother raised an eyebrow and moved her toes when asked; she twitched her mouth when a niece was mentioned and gave a little sneer at the name of someone they dislike.

Courtroom battles over when to end someones life typically drag on because a patient didn't leave any written instructions. But Dorothy prepared nearly every legal document available to spell out her wishes, long before she entered the hospital in November with dehydration and a urinary tract infection.

In 2005, she designated Ianthe as her health care proxy with power of attorney, giving her daughter the legal right to make life-or-death decisions for her.

At the same time, Dorothy wrote out a living will, instructing that she be taken off life support if faced with an "irreversible mental or physical condition with no reasonable expectation of recovery or of regaining a meaningful quality of life."

But neither measure has untangled the legal and ethical questions that have followed in the seven months since she fell into a coma.

After Ianthe refused to remove her mother's ventilator, the hospital petitioned the state Supreme Court in March to assign a different guardian for Dorothy. A judge placed Dorothy's care under the guardianship of Catholic Family Center, but the court has given Ianthe until Friday to file an appeal.

The debate boils down to whether Dorothy can ever recover and who should decide and carry out her wishes.

Full Article and Source:
Daughter battles hospital over comatose Rochester woman's living will

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The woman picked her daughter to speak and make decisions for her should she not be able to. That's the way it should be.