A Daughter’s Fight for Truth Turned into a Guardianship and Probate Nightmare

(By Pamela Locke Bimberg, Daughter) – My mother suffered a brain aneurysm in March 2005, and our family’s life changed forever. For years after that medical crisis, my father and I stood by her side, along with my siblings.

Before my mother became incapacitated, she handled all of the personal and business finances because my father was limited in his ability to do so. My father then insisted that I step into that role and do everything my mother had done, including helping manage their personal finances, her rental properties, and his road-building and land-clearing business.

I was not a stranger to my mother’s care, and I was not a stranger to my parents’ finances. My father and I were as close as a daughter and father could be from the day I was born. I was a true daddy’s girl. I was his favorite, and he made that known. CONTINUE

Source:
A Daughter’s Fight for Truth Turned into a Guardianship and Probate Nightmare 

Terri Schiavo Guardianship Records to Remain Confidential, Court Rules - State Affairs

BY JIM SAUNDERS

Key Points

1. State appeals court rejects bid to unseal Terri Schiavo records
2. Schiavo died in 2005 after feeding tube removal
3. The court cited a state law keeping guardianship records confidential

Two decades after Pinellas County resident Terri Schiavo died following high-profile legal, political and ethical battles over removing her feeding tube, a state appeals court has rejected an attempt to unseal records about the case.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal on Wednesday denied the attempt by Schiavo’s brother and mother — Bobby and Mary Schindler — and an advocacy group, the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network.

Schiavo died March 31, 2005, 15 years after she sustained severe brain damage because of a cardiac arrest at age 26. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, sought permission in 1998 to remove her feeding tube, drawing fierce opposition from her brother and parents.

The case drew national attention and sparked lengthy legal fights and debates in the Florida Legislature and Congress, with Gov. Jeb Bush helping lead efforts to prevent the removal of the feeding tube. Courts allowed the removal, ultimately resulting in Terri Schiavo’s death.

Wednesday’s opinion rejected an attempt by the Schindlers and the advocacy group to open records in a guardianship case. Michael Schiavo was his wife’s guardian after her incapacitation.

The opinion said Bobby Schindler and the group sought to intervene in the long-closed case as a step toward opening the records. It said Mary Schindler did not need to intervene because she had been a party to the case. But it upheld a circuit judge’s decision denying their requests.

In part, the opinion cited a state law aimed at keeping guardianship records confidential. Chief Judge Matthew Lucas wrote that the “fact that Ms. Schiavo passed away many years ago” did not “diminish the importance of the confidentiality the legislature afforded her guardianship records.”

“Finally, and perhaps most glaringly, none of the appellants [the Schindlers and the group] have ever explained why they waited nearly two decades after Ms. Schiavo’s death before filing a motion to unseal her guardianship records,” the opinion, joined by Judges Stevan Northcutt and Craig Villanti, said. “Their failure to address that pertinent question would seem fatal to their argument that good cause justified unsealing these confidential documents.”

Similarly, the opinion said Bobby Schindler and the group did not provide adequate reasons for intervening, saying their only justification “is that they wish to see what is in the sealed guardianship records so that they can, perhaps, use whatever they might find in their public advocacy. We agree with the circuit court that that is an insufficient basis to permit intervention in a case that ended more than twenty years ago.”

In a January news release on the group’s website, Bobby Schindler said the appeal was “about transparency, constitutional rights, and the pursuit of truth.”

“These documents may contain information that could alter the historical understanding of Terri’s case,” he said in a prepared statement. “There is no valid justification for continued secrecy after two decades.”

Bobby Schindler is president of the group, which says on its website that it has “advocated for and assisted thousands of medically vulnerable patients and families” since its founding in 2005.

Full Article & Source:
Terri Schiavo Guardianship Records to Remain Confidential, Court Rules - State Affairs

See Also:
Terri Schiavo 

Evaluation of Traumatic Brain Injuries Gets Its First Overhaul in 50 Years

by April Dembosky

A UCSF doctor helped lead the first major update in over 50 years to how traumatic brain injuries are assessed — going beyond the Glasgow Coma Scale to include CT and MRI scans, biomarkers and other health factors. (Lu ShaoJi/Getty Images)

For the first time in over 50 years, emergency room doctors will have a new framework to assess people with head injuries from car or bike crashes, falls and assaults.

Existing assessment protocols for traumatic brain injury rely on broad, vague measures that filter patients into three categories based on their symptoms: mild, moderate and severe. Doctors hope the new classification system, published Tuesday in The Lancet Neurology, will bring more detail to diagnosis and more nuance to treatment.

“Patients labeled as ‘mild’ TBI were told they could go back to work in a couple days. Six weeks later, they’ve got pounding headaches, problems with their visual system, they’re not sleeping well. There’s nothing mild about that,” said Dr. Geoff Manley, professor of neurosurgery at UCSF and lead author of the new framework.

“On the other hand, there are patients that were diagnosed with ‘severe’ TBI leading full lives, whose families had to consider removing life-sustaining treatment,” he added.

Most people have a 50% chance of experiencing a traumatic brain injury in their lifetime, Manley said. About 40% of those diagnosed with mild injury, or concussion, never see a doctor, and about half diagnosed with severe injury are withdrawn from ventilators and allowed to die — a decision made, on average, after three days.

The same day Scott Hamilton crashed his Vespa on Market Street in San Francisco and slid 60 feet into the curb, doctors at San Francisco General Hospital recommended disconnecting his life support machines.

“They told my wife: ‘He’s got a 1 in 10 chance of ever coming out of his coma, and if he does, he’s got a 1 in 20 chance of your thinking that was a good idea. He’s unlikely to live the night and I think you will consider that a blessing,’” Hamilton said.

A new classification system, developed by a coalition of 94 experts and patients across 14 countries, aims to improve brain injury assessment through a four-part framework: clinical evaluations, advanced imaging, blood tests and consideration of key demographic factors. (Tom Werner/Getty Images)

But Manley saw it differently and insisted his bosses give Hamilton more time. He made a full recovery. Twenty years later he’s married, working full time, and raising two teenage daughters.

“I lose a lot of sleep at night wondering if I’m doing the right thing,” Manley said. “We certainly don’t want to create someone with profound disability long-term, but we have to give people time to recover.”

The new classification system, developed by a coalition of 94 experts and patients across 14 countries, is intended to make those decisions easier by making assessments more objective, detailed and precise.

The new framework is made up of four pillars: an expanded clinical evaluation; new blood tests; CT and MRI scans; and a review of demographic factors known to affect recovery times, like age, sex, family support, and a history of previous head injuries or mental health conditions.

Clinical assessments under the new system require doctors to be more exacting when scoring eye, verbal and motor function and to use new tools to measure pupil function.

New biomarker blood tests, developed by the military, help identify tissue damage and determine which patients need imaging and which can be spared the cost and radiation exposure of an unnecessary scan.

Where indicated, CT and MRI scans can reveal bleeding, blood clots or fractures that require surgery. Or they could show that a patient is doing better than their clinical presentation alone would indicate, as was the case for Hamilton.

The final pillar requires taking an extensive medical and social history of the patient to look for factors likely to affect recovery time. People who are older, women and those with a history of concussions, headaches or mental health problems usually take longer to recover.

“If you don’t ask about these elements, you may miss an opportunity to offer a more realistic prognosis to the patient,” said Dr. Cathra Halabi, director of UCSF’s Neurorecovery Clinic, which includes a program focused on people in the first six months after a traumatic brain injury.

While the new TBI assessment framework is geared primarily toward physicians treating people in acute settings within the first 24 hours of an injury, Halabi said it extends naturally to clinicians like her who see people longer term in an outpatient setting.

More detailed assessments will help doctors better determine who needs urgent care and who doesn’t, who needs follow-up care and who doesn’t. They also have the potential to improve clinical trials, bringing more precision to patient selection and a better likelihood of discovering new effective treatments.

Under the current system, Halabi frequently receives patient charts from the ER that say, “Bicycle accident, mild TBI.”

She expects the new classification will yield a thorough diagnostic description along the lines of: “Thirty-year-old woman, helmeted bicycle accident, blunt head injury, brief loss of consciousness, peritraumatic amnesia. CT scan negative for bleeding. Experiencing double vision, emotional dysregulation. History of migraines and depression.”

The additional data will inform Halabi on how to properly care for this patient from the moment she comes into her clinic, and to be on the lookout for lingering and emerging symptoms like sleep impairments or endocrine dysfunction that could complicate healing.

“I’ve seen all sorts of bicycle accidents with mild TBI, and every single person is different,” she said. “Unless you really ask and probe a bit more deeply on the other side of the acute phase, you may miss an opportunity to find an element of the case that’s going to help make that person recover.” 

Full Article & Source:
Evaluation of Traumatic Brain Injuries Gets Its First Overhaul in 50 Years

‘Truly a Miracle’: Dancer Overcomes Brain Injury, Shares Story of Hope

by Kerry Clawson

 

(Akron Beacon Journal) – With every step, turn and bravura lift that professional ballet dancer Brian Murphy executed at a rehearsal with a dance partner in Akron earlier this month, he was thankful to be alive.

After suffering a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a bike accident in late June in Toledo and having lifesaving neurosurgery, he’s thrilled to be back dancing full-strength.

This weekend, he’ll be making his first public performance since his accident, as a guest dancer for Cleveland’s Dancing Wheels at the Big Umbrella Festival for neurodiverse audiences at the Lincoln Center in New York. Murphy has danced with Dancing Wheels, which integrates dancers of all abilities, for a year. CONTINUE

Full Article & Source:

‘Truly a Miracle’: Dancer Overcomes Brain Injury, Shares Story of Hope

Bobby Schlindler on The Shannon Joy Show - 08 July 2022

Source:
Bobby Schlindler on The Shannon Joy Show - 08 July 2022

Professor Discusses 5 Recent Brain Injury Breakthroughs

(OCNJDaily) – One in every 60 adults and children in the United States is living with a permanent disability caused by a brain injury. That’s 5.3 million people.

Michael Fraas is a professor who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati and is a Member of the Brain Injury – Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (BI-ISIG) of the ACRM. Dr. Fraas has worked extensively and published in the field of brain injury rehabilitation.

There are many exciting developments in this field, including a second edition in the works for The Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual, courtesy of Dr. Fraas and colleagues. Below, Professor Fraas discusses some recent developments in the study of brain injuries that have made their way into the news. CONTINUE

Full Article & Source:

Professor Discusses 5 Recent Brain Injury Breakthroughs

Bobby Schindler: Health Care's March Toward Death

On September 6th, 2021, Jean-Pierre Adams died at the age of 73. You would have never heard of Adams if not that he was a former French professional soccer player. However, what made Adams’ death newsworthy was that his extraordinary wife Bernadette dedicated her life to caring for Jean-Pierre when he sustained a brain injury after knee surgery complications.

Jean-Pierre never regained full consciousness and for 39 years he was dependent on his wife for care. From the day Bernadette brought Jean-Pierre home she was at his bedside, never at any time contemplating ending his life by removing his feeding tube. She taught the world a lesson of unconditional love.

Sadly, we don’t hear enough of these stories. Certainly, there are families who are caring for the “Jean-Pierre’s”, but the reality is that the media – and more troubling – our health care systems, are inculcating the public into their earthly worldview, fostering a culture that accepts the denial of life-affirming care, even if the “care” is ordinary – food and water – based on a person’s utility, as was in the case of my sister, Terri Schiavo.

In fact, it was 18 years ago on October 21st, 2003, when the Florida Legislature passed a bill granting the governor, Jeb Bush, the power to reinsert Terri’s feeding tube after it had been removed for six days. That day marked the beginning of my family’s experience with corporate media and how they would launder the truth of Terri’s situation and condition with “right to die” propaganda.

Full Article and Source:
Health Care's March Toward Death

Society Is Increasingly Embracing Eugenic Logic. I Saw It Firsthand With My Sister's Death.

by Bobby Schindler 

Source: AP/Reuters Feed

In 2014, Richard Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist, author, and a one-time University of Oxford Professor, advised a woman who was pregnant with a Down syndrome baby that she should "Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice."

There is no way to quantify the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling to legalize abortion and the effect it has had on our consciences let alone its impact on our culture. It is reasonable to conclude given the remarks like Dawkins that Roe has desensitized us to the meaning of life – the unborn and born included – and our God-given sacredness to what has become a utilitarian way of thinking.

This kind of eugenic logic led to a mob of media, politicians, and individuals attacking my family for wanting to care for my sister, Terri Schiavo. These people believe disabled people like Terri should be killed while an apathetic majority does nothing.

Terri had difficulty swallowing due to her brain injury and needed a feeding tube to administer her food and water but was not sustained by “life support,” nor was she sick or dying. Nonetheless, she received a death sentence ordered by a Florida judge at the request of her estranged husband because he viewed her as a “burden” with a “quality of life” that he loathed and was unwilling to support.

In response to Terri’s death, my family established the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network to aid families in situations like what my family experienced with my sister. Since that time, we have watched the protections for our medically vulnerable shrink as an acceptance that would make Dawkins proud infects our culture like an uncontainable sickness.

For example, I recently received the following email from a brother who needed help to protect his sister from having her life ended by their mother (names have been omitted for reasons of privacy):

"I need help regarding my disabled sister’s right-to-life. She has had many surgeries and my mom no longer wants to care for her and is doing everything in her power to bring in hospice, so they can give her morphine to suppress her lungs so that she passes away. She’s a happy thriving individual who loves life - she rides her bike, watches movies, communicates using sign language, and is in general the happiest person you would ever meet. Dying would not be her wish."

Sadly, this is all too common, as we have received similar calls for help. But when our dignity is marginalized, particularly in persons with disabilities and other medically unsafe persons, this is the consequence.

And this human dignity has been marginalized previously in our recent history. Only three decades prior to Roe, the world watched in horror as fanatics (using Dawkins-esque rationale) orchestrated “The Euthanasia Program” – the prearranged and calculated murder of institutionalized patients with disabilities in Germany.

These heartless tyrants – mostly German doctors – targeted those they deemed "life unworthy of life.” In other words, individuals with mental and physical inferiorities were killed, in part, because they were financial burdens on German society.

Although the United States has not reached a full-scale, government-endorsed “Euthanasia Program,” this financial rational, along with the fading meaning of a person’s intrinsic worth, has taken root in American health care, as it is used to deny and withdraw care from our medically inferior.

Disguised as compassion, the value of the dollar is given more deference than a person with disabilities or the medical care they require. Moreover, the expansion of this thinking is spreading into uncharted territory.

For instance, the difficulty in diagnosing severe neurological related injuries, the rising expense of life-sustaining medical technology, and the lucrative financial incentives to harvest organs is forcing challenging and unwanted decisions on caregivers and loved ones.

Perhaps, not surprisingly, the current “procurement” market for human tissues and organs in the U.S. is quite large and driven by insufficient supply and heavy demand. The Milliman Report publishes the “going rate” for each of 12 different tissues and organs in the human body. A heart, for instance, goes for close to $80,000; a kidney, $65,000; a lung, $70,000. If all 12 tissues and organs could be harvested from a single patient declared “brain-dead”, a highly controversial diagnosis, however unlikely, their total value would exceed a half-million dollars.

It was not long ago— prior to Terri’s death in 2005—when the thought of dehydrating a cognitively disabled person would have been unimaginable. Today, it has become commonly accepted by society, not only as the cases we receive at the Life & Hope Network demonstrate, but by the worldwide headlines of comparable types of cases.

So, who is next? Perhaps those with autism will be in their crosshairs? We can certainly make similar financial burden and the loss of dignity arguments on the most severe cases of autism. How about persons with Down syndrome after they have been born? Especially if their parents or caretakers pass away and they become wards (and financial liabilities) of the state? Seems like Richard Dawkins would approve.

Indeed, this is the natural progression when we marginalize those in society we judge “useless.” Eventually, nobody is immune to mistreatment, and in the case of our medically unprotected, death is the inevitable conclusion.

The medical profession used to lead by example, understanding the vital importance of a person’s dignity and reflecting that in its relationship between the physician and the patient. Doctors desired and chose to be healers, so that our medically fragile would receive appropriate and needed life-affirming care.

Extremists like Dawkins’ understanding of what is “immoral” exposes a new morality that is being supplanted by today’s modernists and their relativistic agenda: an anti-life, anti-traditional value, anti-Christian ideology.

Consequently, God as our Creator is rejected, opening the door to the most powerful and influential institutions: physicians, government bureaucrats, the health care system, the insurance industry, and the media, all intertwined working in harmony deciding who should and who should not receive treatment. Or in other words, who will live and who will die.

What a dangerous time for us all.

Bobby Schindler is president of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, and an associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

Full Article & Source:

Society Is Increasingly Embracing Eugenic Logic. I Saw It Firsthand With My Sister's Death.

26-Year-Old “Brain Dead” Coronavirus Patient Just Walked Out of the Hospital

by Anna Medaris Miller

Reuters

Medical workers treat COVID-19 in Madrid.

When Tionna Hairston's heart repeatedly stopped beating for 30 minutes, her doctors worried yet again that she wouldn't make it. 

The 26-year-old in North Carolina was diagnosed with COVID-19 in May, and subsequently suffered a stroke that led to bleeding in her brain and blood clots in her heart that caused the cardiac arrest, the Winston-Salem Journal's Richard Craver reported. 

The conditions left her unable to fully use her arms and legs, and she was put on a ventilator for more than two months. She also suffered kidney and liver failure. 

Doctors "thought that we should take her off of life support because she had no hope for life," Hairston's mom, Stacey Peatross said, according to Rasheeda Kabba, who covered the story for multiple local outlets. "They thought she would be a vegetable. She wouldn't have any quality of life at all." 

They were wrong. After family, friends, and strangers prayed for her, Hairston began improving. She entered rehab for more than a month, where she relearned basic activities of daily living, like eating and getting dressed. 

On Tuesday, she walked out of the hospital to continue rehab at home. She had been in medical care for 137 days. "My faith in God and the fact that I wanted to walk again" allowed her to survive, Hairston said. 

Calling Tionna Hairston a survivor may be one of the great understatements of 2020. https://t.co/R4x0zRtFFD

— Winston-Salem Journal (@JournalNow) October 21, 2020

While she's not fully recovered — she walks with a walker and has some memory loss — her doctors praised her recovery and the lessons it can teach others. 

First, people should know "20-somethings can get very sick from COVID and COVID complications," Dr. James McLean, director of the Novant rehabilitation hospital in Winston-Salem, told Craver. "It's not just older folks." 

The other lesson is that Hairston "demonstrated that human spirit, that little flame inside that keeps us going, shows us that people can overcome things that we could never imagine."

Other young COVID-19 patients have suffered strokes and neurological issues  

Doctors have been concerned to see strokes in young people with no prior history of strokes and, in some cases, mild or even asymptomatic COVID. 

In May, five young New Yorkers with COVID-19 were admitted to the hospital with life-threatening "large-vessel" strokes, or those caused by a blood clot that travels from the body into an artery in the brain, Business Insider's Aylin Woodward previously reported. 

Doctors don't yet understand exactly how COVID-19 influences stroke risk, but it may have to do with blood clots, which have appeared in other parts of coronavirus patients' bodies, like the lungs and legs. 

COVID-19 has also been linked to a range of other neurological issues, including delirium, brain fog, and memory lapses. Some experts have even warned of an epidemic of brain damage. 

"My worry is that we have millions of people with COVID-19 now. And if in a year's time we have 10 million recovered people, and those people have cognitive deficits ... then that's going to affect their ability to work and their ability to go about activities of daily living," Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at Western University in Canada, told Reuters.

 

Michael Goldsmith returning home April 19.

Abbie Sophia

It's unclear why some young critically ill patients who were previously healthy recover and others die, but Hairston is not the only success story.

Michael Goldsmith, a 34-year-old husband and father in New Jersey, was in a medically-induced coma and on a ventilator for 22 days while fighting a severe case of COVID-19. At the same time, his family and community advocated for access to the drug remdesivir, which they thought might be his only chance of survival. 

He never got the drug, but recovered, and doctors don't know why. 

After returning home, Goldsmith told Insider he cherished simple moments like snuggling with the family while watching TV. "It's the little things that you hope for, and I would say 'you dream about,'" Michael said, "but after going through the coma, I don't know for sure that was the case."

Editor's note: This story was updated to remove medical information provided by another media outlet that Business Insider was unable to verify. 

Full Article & Source:

26-Year-Old “Brain Dead” Coronavirus Patient Just Walked Out of the Hospital

Food, water restored to comatose man in US Catholic hospital after mom fights for his life

Click to Watch Video

TUCSON, Arizona, January 28, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Nutrition and hydration have been restored to a 32-year-old man in a coma in an Arizona Catholic hospital after his mom posted heartbreaking videos on social media last week saying that doctors were slowly starving her son to death.

David Ruiz, a father of three, suffered a stroke and subsequent brain injury that left him in a coma on December 31.  Doctors declared David brain dead about two weeks ago, despite him twitching, raising his toes, and moving his fingers when his mother and other family members talked to him.

His mother, Patricia “Tricia” Adames, 51, made an emotional appeal on Facebook last week to anyone who could help save her son.

“As you can see, his body is emaciating. His body is literally deteriorating, it’s disappearing before us because he is being denied nutrition. He is starving in a hospital,” she said in her Jan. 24 video while panning to her son lying in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes and monitors.

“I am coming to you...asking, ‘please help me get my son the treatment that he needs, nutrition and hydration.' He’s being starved at this very moment.”

Adames said that she believes that if the heart is beating, “there is life.”

“He’s starving in our country. How can that be okay? How is that humanity? No one in this country should ever be denied food and water,” she said.

Adames told LifeSiteNews that David had not been receiving nutrition since January 9 and that her son was receiving a fraction of the hydration he needed for survival.

Life Legal Defense Foundation heard of the case and organized a news conference yesterday at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tucson where David is being hospitalized.

"Nutrition and hydration are basic human rights. It is outrageous that a hospital would deny these most basic provisions to a disabled patient. Ms. Adames is not looking for the hospital to keep her son indefinitely. She is only asking that they give David the nutrition and hydration he needs in order to be transferred to a facility that can provide appropriate care," stated Life Legal Defense Foundation’s Alexandra Snyder, Esq.

Glenn Beck on his radio show today criticized the hospital for ignoring the mother’s pleas for her son.

“This is wrong to do to people. And we must not go down this road,” said Beck on his show.

It appears that the hospital caved today to outside pressure and restored David’s food and water.

“I am so happy. I am so grateful to God. Hallelujah for this miracle,” said Adames to LifeSiteNews after news came that her son would receive food and water.

“I choose to believe, and I am very very grateful. The hospital didn't have to keep him on.”

“So, I have to say I am so grateful to everyone who has helped and prayed. Glory to God. It's a long road, but through prayer and learning and understanding we can do it. Hopefully, they're going to keep their end of the agreement and continue helping me get David to a place of long-term care and get him stable so he can recover,” she said.

Right to life activist Bobby Schindler also confirmed to LifeSiteNews that hydration and nourishment were being restored to David by the hospital.

In a phone call, Bobby Schindler of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network told LifeSiteNews that it’s critical for the hospital to treat David.

“Right now, even if we were able to find a facility that would accept him he has been without nourishment and little to no hydration for almost three weeks now. He’s medically fragile and I don’t know if we’re able to transfer him,” he said.

Schindler told LifeSiteNews that he cannot understand why “there was such a rush to stop treatment,” adding that the family is now fighting for time to “see if we can get this kid treated and to have the opportunity to improve.”

Adames is seeking to raise funds necessary for air transport to hospitals in other parts of the country that can accept David as a patient. She calculated that the transportation would cost at least $25,000. A GoFundMe page has been established to receive donations.

St. Joseph’s Hospital is part of the Carondelet Health system and traces its origins to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, who came to Tucson in the 1870s. In 2015, the Texas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. assumed majority ownership of the Carondelet Health Network. The Catholic hospital chain then went from nonprofit to for-profit. Local media reported at the time that the "joint venture will maintain Carondelet’s Roman Catholic heritage and identity through an agreement with the Diocese of Tucson."

Regarding the provision of life support to patients, according to the National Catholic Bioethics Center, “The Catholic Church teaches that life is an intrinsic good. Even when a person is afflicted with illness, that value remains intact. In fact, the sick and the elderly deserve our special care.” It goes on to say, “The default position for the care of those who are suffering from diminished consciousness and have not begun the death process, as well as for those at the end of life, should be in favor of providing food and water even by artificial means. If the provision of food and water proves to be useless (if they are not being assimilated by the body) or if it causes serious complications (such as aspiration pneumonia or infections), it can be stopped.”

The bioethics center notes that “unfortunately” the removal of nutrition and hydration from incapacitated patients is “fairly common.” It says: “Whenever a recommendation is made to withhold food and water, one should ask, ‘What will be the cause of death?’ If the answer is dehydration or starvation, and assisted nutrition and hydration can be easily supplied and assimilated, then not supplying them is a form of euthanasia. Unconsciousness is not a fatal disease. No one dies from unconsciousness.”

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator.”

Jan. 29, 2019 update: This report contains more information about current ownership of St. Joseph's Hospital. 

Full Article & Source:
Food, water restored to comatose man in US Catholic hospital after mom fights for his life

New Yorker Presents Editorialized Speculation on Terri Schiavo, Offers No Correction

Rachel Aviv’s “What Does it Mean to Die?” profiles Jahi McMath, outlining this resilient and courageous young girl’s situation in much of its depth, conveying the complex nature of Jahi’s medical and legal situation as it relates to the neurological criterion for death (“brain death”) and many medical, bioethical, philosophical, and religious dimensions of the issue of human life. Unfortunately, in this same piece the New Yorker presents editorialized speculation and hearsay on Terri Schiavo as if it were objective news. Worse, after nearly two weeks of appeals, the New Yorker’s “fact checking” staff and editors refused any correction.

The New Yorker editorializes that footage of Terri Schiavo appearing conscious and aware “had been edited, giving the illusion that she was tracking people with her eyes, even though she was blind”.

These “fact free” assertions dramatically misleads readers about the nature of the early 2000s Terri-related footage. A much more objective and medically sound characterization in the form of a correction was proposed to the New Yorker but rejected: “Short video footage of Dr. Ronald Cranford’s neurological examination of Terri Schiavo on behalf of her husband, Michael Schiavo, remains controversial, due to the uncertain nature of her visual and cognitive abilities”. CONTINUE

* * *

Wesley J. Smith: More Falsehoods About Terri Schiavo’s Family

In "Culture of Death"

 

 

 

Terri Schiavo's Family Remarks on Bishop Robert N. Lynch's Retirement

In "Honoring Terri"

 

 

Please Don't Confuse This Story With Terri Schiavo

First appeared in the Dakota Voice, available here. One can’t help but wonder if perhaps the mainstream media is feeling a growing sense of uneasiness regarding Terri’s death. In the two years since my sister died I have witnessed an increasing determination on their part to convince the public that…

In "Op-Eds"

Full Article & Source:
New Yorker Presents Editorialized Speculation on Terri Schiavo, Offers No Correction

Sliding towards euthanasia in Oregon

Many Americans oppose abortion because they reject injustice – particularly when it targets vulnerable, fellow human beings.

You and I would be hard-pressed to find anyone more vulnerable than an innocent preborn child.

However, there is another segment of society whose right to life is being increasingly jeopardized, and there are ways we can – and should – help protect them.

It seems with each passing week another patient who has suffered a serious brain injury is being threatened with or denied the basics of food and water – the result of a healthcare professional deeming his or her life hopeless.

This is a much more serious problem than most people realize.



If you read only one article on this topic, let it be Basic Care, Human Dignity, and Care for Medically Vulnerable Persons, by Bobby Schindler. Bobby is the president of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network.

Bobby recently became an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), the research arm of Susan B. Anthony List. In his first article for CLI, he articulately summarizes key moments in history that brought America to the point of ending the lives of patients by denying them food and water. He exposes the alarming margin of error associated with diagnosing a patient of being beyond hope and he notes some subsequent ramifications.

Bobby also directs us to the flickering light at the end of the tunnel that may mean life or death, recovery or languishment, for many thousands of people.

Last year Oregon’s State Senate passed a bill redefining food and water when given by a cup or spoon, as “medical care.” Thankfully it was tabled in the House. Had it passed, patients who were alert and aware but unable to feed themselves may have been denied food and water.

This frightening legislation isn’t a giant leap in logic from the laws in all 50 states that allow patients’ lives to be ended by denying them food and water. Yes, every state.

The term Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) means a complete unawareness of self and environment. It was coined by just to physicians, and it degrades and dehumanizes unresponsive or minimally aware patients, relegating them to the category of grocery produce.

PVS is arbitrary and subjectively applied to patients. In addition, research shows it has been misdiagnosed as much as 48 percent of the time. If that were the case with heart disease there would be an immediate stampede to rectify the situation.

Once a patient is labeled with PVS it’s difficult to undo and they are often denied insurance benefits for rehabilitation when it’s needed the most, their first signs of recovery are often overlooked, or it can lead doctors to persuade families to “let them go” by withdrawing food and water.

The flickering light at the end of the tunnel is this: New medical advancements have allowed doctors to better diagnose brain-injured patients. And the European Task Force on Disorders of Consciousness recommends the medical community abandon PVS and replace it with “unresponsive wakefulness syndrome.” It jettisons the dehumanizing “vegetative” language and infers the possibility of some level of recovery.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, one of the founders of modern neurology, believed that the human brain was “hardwired” and unable to fix itself in the wake of an injury. However, Dr. Joseph J. Fins’ research now suggests the brain has a capability of “rewiring” itself to some degree. Even more is being done to assist this process with adult stem cells.

To help protect you and your family from the potential withdrawal of food and water against your will, please check out our free resources.

No patient should ever be subjected to death by dehydration and starvation. We wouldn’t do that to an animal, so why are we doing it to our own human family?

Brad serves as chairman of the board for the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network.

Bradley Mattes
President, Life Issues Institute

Life Issues Institute is dedicated to changing hearts and minds of millions of people through education. For 25 years, organizations and individuals around the world have depended upon Life Issues Institute to provide the latest information and effective tools to protect innocent human life from womb to tomb.

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Sliding towards euthanasia in Oregon

Terri Schiavo’s Brother on Protecting the Medically Vulnerable

Published on Jun 23, 2017
With the rise of assisted suicide, the spotlight is on the need to protect the medically vulnerable. Bobby Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo, joins us as we look back on her life and discuss how we can care for our loved ones.

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 Terri Schiavo’s Brother on Protecting the Medically Vulnerable

From Private Ordeal to National Fight: The Case of Terri Schiavo

 

Her surname in Italian means “slave,” and is pronounced skee-AH-vo. Grim as it may be, the word could apply to Theresa Marie Schiavo, even with its Americanized pronunciation: SHY-vo. For 15 years, Terri Schiavo was effectively a slave — slave to an atrophied brain that made her a prisoner in her body, slave to bitter fighting between factions of her family, slave to seemingly endless rounds of court hearings, slave to politicians who injected themselves into her tragedy and turned her ordeal into a national morality play.

To this day, the name Schiavo is virtually a synonym for epic questions about when life ends and who gets to make that determination. It would be nice to believe that since Ms. Schiavo’s death nine years ago, America has found clear answers. Of course it has not, as is evident in Retro Report's exploration of the Schiavo case, the latest video documentary in a weekly series that examines major news stories from the past and their aftermath.

Ms. Schiavo, a married woman living in St. Petersburg, Fla., was 26 years old when she collapsed on Feb. 25, 1990. While her potassium level was later found to be abnormally low, an autopsy drew no conclusion as to why she had lost consciousness. Whatever the cause, her brain was deprived of oxygen long enough to leave her in a “persistent vegetative state,” a condition that is not to be confused with brain death. She could breathe without mechanical assistance. But doctors concluded that she was incapable of thought or emotion. After her death on March 31, 2005, an autopsy determined that the brain damage was irreversible.

Between her collapse — when she “departed this earth,” as her grave marker puts it — and her death — when she became “at peace” — the nation bore witness to an increasingly acrimonious battle between her husband, Michael Schiavo, and her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler. Mr. Schiavo wanted to detach the feeding tube that gave her nourishment. Terri never would have wanted to be kept alive that way, he said. The Schindlers insisted that the tube be kept in place. That, they said, is what their daughter would have wanted. To Mr. Schiavo, the woman he had married was gone. To the Schindlers, a sentient human was still in that body.

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From Private Ordeal to National Fight: The Case of Terri Schiavo

Saying Patients are PVS Allows Courts to Starve Them to Death, What if the Diagnosis is Wrong?

I have written time and time again about the dangerous and dehumanizing persistent vegetative state (PVS) diagnosis. Actually, we saw in my family’s battle to save my sister, Terri Schiavo, from death by dehydration, that a tremendous amount of debate raged over whether or not she was in this condition.

In fact, this diagnosis is what allowed the court to order the removal of Terri’s food and water. Yet despite continuing research validating that the PVS diagnosis is growing in its inaccuracy, the medical community uses this diagnosis to end countless lives of our medically vulnerable patients who are allegedly in this condition.

This latest finding is one of a continuous stream of reports that have been issued on the inaccuracy of the PVS diagnosis. From the Report, Brain Scans Show Vegetative Patients May Actually Recover:

The Journal’s report, released on Feb. 3, revealed that some patients who were believed to be in a PVS were actually able to understand and communicate. Through the use of functional magnetic resonance scanning (fMRI), researchers in the United Kingdom estimated that a percentage of those patients suffering from profound brain injuries possessed the capacity to comprehend and communicate in limited ways.

Indeed, every time these studies are published we should move to abolish the PVS diagnosis, in particularly, using it as a reason to kill. Sadly, however, despite these imaging studies and what they reveal about the human brain, the vast majority of the medical community sees nothing improper about using such an unscientific diagnosis for, what usually turns out to be, reasons almost never in the best interest of the patients.

Furthermore, not only can the PVS diagnosis be used as an actual death sentence for a patient, but as a death sentence figuratively speaking, as well. And it seems both are supported under the pretext to save health care costs. You see, the PVS can also be used to cut off funds for a person in need of vital rehabilitation. Because once insurance providers receive the PVS diagnosis in regards to the patient’s condition, no longer are they willing to pay for any rehabilitative services.

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Saying Patients are PVS Allows Courts to Starve Them to Death, What if the Diagnosis is Wrong?

Jahi McMath in 'Very Bad Shape' After Weeks of Starvation, Medical Neglect

The attorney for the family of Jahi McMath says the teenage girl is in “very bad shape” following three weeks of starvation and medical neglect while the family battled Children’s Hospital in Oakland over her fate.

Late Sunday night, Children’s Hospital Oakland released Jahi to her family after a protracted legal battle over whether the hospital had the right to remove her from life support.

On Friday, the hospital reached an agreement with McMath’s family to allow a medical team to enter the hospital to perform the procedures necessary to move her to a medical facility that will continue her care and treatment.

Although the hospital maintains McMath is “brain dead,” her mother and family say she is alive  following a tonsillectomy gone awry that has left her in an incapacitated state since early December. The family in the case says the hospital  has been starving Jahi for three weeks.  .

Family attorney Christopher McMath says that has taken its toll, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The family’s attorney, Christopher Dolan, told the San Jose Mercury News, however, that Jahi’s body has deteriorated badly in the weeks since she was declared brain-dead.

“She’s in very bad shape,” he said. “What I can tell you is that those examinations show that her medical condition, separate from the brain issue, is not good.”

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Jahi McMath in ‘Very Bad Shape” After Weeks of Starvation, Medical Neglect

Remember the Humanity of Jahi McMath

As in the case of Terri Schiavo, people with severe brain injuries are treated like second class citizens, often being denied the treatment, care, and love that their humanity demands

The tragic facts surrounding 13 year-old Jahi McMath are now well known. She underwent routine surgery at Children’s Hospital Oakland December 9 for removal of her tonsils and some other tissue to alleviate her sleep apnea. After surgery she was alert and sitting up in bed, chatting with her family. However, as her family watched, Jahi began bleeding profusely, the blood on her gown matching the pink popsicle she held in her hand. The bleeding went on for several hours before she went into cardiac arrest and was medically declared  brain dead on December 12.

Ever since, Jahi’s family has been locked in a battle of attrition with Oakland Children’s: The hospital says she’s dead; her family says she’s severely brain-injured.

Oakland Children’s position is brutally cold: Because Jahi has been declared brain-dead, she is therefore completely dead, only staying warm via the life-giving oxygen being pumped into her system by a mechanical ventilator. The hospital leadership has taken every opportunity to make clear that they are following California's legal definition of brain death to the letter. For the hospital, Jahi is a hollow mass of flesh devoid of meaning; the administration has refused to refer to her as a child of a loving family. Instead, they have said that she is a “dead body” and a “deceased person.” Hospital spokesman Sam Singer rubbed even more salt into the wound, noting that “no amount of hope, prayer, or medical procedures will bring her back.”

The hard-nosed corporate line is very simple: Jahi is a mere shell, bereft of humanity, and using up precious resources only because of the naïve and uninformed hopes of her loving but pesky family.
Unsurprisingly, Jahi’s family sees things differently. They watched a vibrant young teenager morph into a starkly silent child, her hopes and potential dashed by a relatively simple medical procedure. They have also made clear that despite her current condition, Jahi is still their beloved child, not some washed-up husk ready for disposal. They have also been clear that Jahi is perhaps not as “dead” as Oakland Children’s Hospital would have us all believe. Jahi’s mother and several family members report that Jahi has responded to familiar voices. They have made the case that at the very least Jahi’s medical condition should be given some time before a radical hospital decision deprives her of her life for good.

For the hospital, Jahi’s medical diagnosis is certain and final, a diagnosis they want to leverage to close the book on a public relations crisis that has already badly diminished the reputation of the facility.

It’s not that simple, however, because no medical diagnosis is absolute. The research literature is rife with clinically observed instances of patients outstripping their physicians’ dire predictions by months, years, and even decades.

And that includes diagnoses of brain death.

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Remember the Humanity of Jani McMath

Girl brain dead after surgery: Terri Schiavo family joins fight over Jahi McMath

The family of Terri Schiavo has joined the battle over Jahi McMath, a 13-year-old girl on life support who has been declared dead by doctors.

"Together with our team of experts, Terri's Network believes Jahi's case is representative of a very deep problem within the U.S. healthcare system -- particularly those issues surrounding the deaths of patients within the confines of hospital corporations, which have a vested financial interest in discontinuing life," the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network said in a prepared statement.

The organization said it has been overseeing the efforts of several groups to help get Jahi transferred out of Children's Hospital Oakland and brought "to a safe place."

Jahi's family said Tuesday it had found a facility in New York willing to take her. The Oakland hospital "refused to agree to allow us to proceed in that matter," Jahi's uncle Omari Sealey said.
The hospital denied the accusation.

"We have done everything to assist the family of Jahi McMath in their quest to take the deceased body of their daughter to another medical facility," hospital spokesman Sam Singer said.

"To date, they have been unwilling or unable to provide a physician to perform the procedures necessary, transportation, or a facility that would accept a dead person on a ventilator. Our hearts and thoughts go out to them in this tragic situation, but the statements being made by their attorney and some family members are misleading and untrue."

Family attorney Christopher Dolan had accused the hospital of being "hell bent" on ending Jahi's life.
A judge has declared Jahi brain dead as well. Doctors say there's no chance she will come back to life.

Omari Sealey, Jahi's uncle, said Wednesday that the family still hopes to move her to another facility.
He accused the hospital of starving his niece by not using a feeding tube to provide her with nutrients.

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Girl brain dead after surgery: Terri Schiavo family joins fight over Jahi McMath

Study Shows People in “Vegetative” State Were Incorrectly Diagnosed

There is more encouraging news coming out of Canada regarding the very unscientific persistent vegetative state (PVS) diagnosis. Once again there has been a study regarding three people who were incorrectly thought to be in a PVS.

Why is this so important? One reason is that the PVS diagnosis can be used as a motive to kill a person with a brain injury, as it was in my sister, Terri Schiavo’s case. This is not the first time this type of testing has taken place with similar types of results.

From the story, “Brain scans reveal which ‘vegetative’ patients are alert, trapped in bodies”:

A man who had appeared to have been in a vegetative state for 12 years knew his name and knew where he was, Canadian researchers report in a study showing it’s possible to use MRI brain scans to establish communication with people who seem completely unconscious. Three people tested using a special form of MRI called functional magnetic resonance imaging were able to answer simple “yes” or “no” questions, the team at Western University in London, Ontario report.

And once again, just like most of these reports where they find people have been wrongly diagnosed as being in a PVS, they felt it necessary to point out that there is no way possible that they were wrong when Terri Schiavo was diagnosed as being in PVS and then subsequently killed because of it.

In fact, they often say, as in this report, the autopsy proved it. To help strengthen their claim, they bring in the “experts” like the “omniscient” bioethicist, Art Caplan who believes it was okay to deny Terri the same tests he seems to approve for others in similar conditions:

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Study Shows People in “Vegetative” State Were Incorrectly Diagnosed

Terri Schiavo's Brother, Bobby Schindler, Working to Help Others

By now, eight years later, the details and debate over his sister's situation - her diagnosis, her prognosis, her wishes, her autopsy - are no longer that important to Bobby Schindler.
For him, one thought dominates. Terri Schiavo deserved to live.

Schindler now heads a growing foundation to help others in similar situations. Every year since her death, they've held a "Terri's Day" of remembrance.

This year, the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network has moved from Florida to the Philadelphia area, where both the Schindler and Schiavo families are from, and the event has grown.

At 5 p.m. Friday, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput will celebrate a Mass dedicated to Terri Schiavo at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul. Sarah Palin will speak afterward at a fund-raising dinner at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. A ticket is $150, and 350 have been sold; $25,000 gets you a visit with Palin, but no takers so far, Schindler said.

Terri Schiavo died March 31, 2005, after 15 years in what doctors termed a persistent vegetative state. Her case was marked by an excruciating public family battle that traversed the courts, prompted an unprecedented session of Congress, drew the attention of the Vatican, and inspired countless Americans to complete "living wills" spelling out what care they did - or did not - want in the event of severe injury or illness.

Her husband, Michael, said she would not have wanted to live this way. Her parents and siblings said she would have chosen life, no matter what.

It is a decision that daily is facing many families, although rarely in such a public arena. Mostly, it's in a hospital conference room with a box of tissues on the table.

Schindler, 48, a former math and science teacher in Florida, thinks many patients are being warehoused. Last year, the foundation established a Center for Disability in the Public Square - a data-gathering and information-sharing network. In his office, he has a sketch of a rehab facility he would like the foundation to build, although he concedes it is likely a long way off.

The foundation, begun in 2000, has seen its revenue grow steadily, from less than $20,000 in 2005 to nearly $700,000 in 2011.

That year, contributions were bolstered by a $100,000 prize from the Gerard Health Foundation, a pro-life philanthropy in Natick, Mass., that praised the Schiavo network for helping 1,000 families, and giving them "safe haven amidst the pressure of the so-called 'right to die' movement."

 

One of them is Sara Harvey, of Horseheads, N.Y., just north of the Pennsylvania line. She has been battling officials over her husband, Gary, who has been in a persistent vegetative state for nearly seven years, after falling down steps and suffering a traumatic brain injury.

A judge had named the county Gary Harvey's guardian in 2007, and in 2009, officials planned to remove his feeding tube. Sara Harvey contacted Schindler, who has petitioned the court to name him a legal guardian.

No decision has been made, but Sara Harvey credits Schindler with saving her husband's life so far.  "Bobby's like an angel over my husband."

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Terri Schiavo's Brother Working to Help Others