U.S. hospital will not remove oxygen from elderly woman who says on video ‘I want to live’

64-year-old Catie Cassidy with lung cancer. Life Legal Defense Foundation / Youtube screen grab

May 2, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The 64-year-old woman at reported risk of being euthanized by a Minnesota hospital has received a reprieve after a pro-life legal non-profit intervened on her behalf.

Catie Cassidy is resting comfortably, according to Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF), after the hospital agreed to abide by her wishes and those of her healthcare proxy and not remove Catie’s oxygen.

“We received news today that Fairview Hospital in Edina is fully cooperating with Catie’s health care proxy and that they will continue to provide Catie with oxygen as needed,” the Foundation said in a statement.

The hospital received a lot of calls and even visits from people concerned about the case, LLDF Executive Director Alexandra Snyder told LifeSiteNews.

“Thank you so much to all who showed up for Catie by getting the word out and calling the hospital,” Snyder said. “You are amazing!”

LLDF attorneys had sent a demand letter informing the hospital of its duties under Minnesota law after learning the hospital had planned to remove Cassidy’s oxygen on Wednesday morning.

Cassidy is a lung cancer patient, and without supplemental oxygen, she would have suffocated to death.

She had communicated in no uncertain terms in a video that went viral earlier this week that she did not want the hospital to “pull the plug” on her oxygen, and that she wanted to live.



Cassidy recounted on the video how she’d responded “no” and “no way” to the question of the hospital pulling the plug on her oxygen, that she was not done fighting and she wanted to live.

LLDF was contacted about Cassidy’s care by Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group in New York that opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia. The Foundation then heard from the daughter of Cassidy’s healthcare proxy, who provided the video of Cassidy emphatically stating her wish to live.

“Life Legal is pleased that Catie will receive the care she needs and that her wish to fight for her life as long as she can will be honored,” the legal non-profit said in its statement.

Snyder expressed gratitude to the non-profit’s Minnesota team, including local attorneys Wayne Holstad and Craig Beuning, who intervened immediately on Cassidy’s behalf.

Withdrawing Cassidy’s oxygen to cause her death would be active euthanasia, Snyder had said Tuesday, which is illegal in Minnesota and every other state.
The hospital released a statement saying that it does its best to honor the wishes of patients and does not practice euthanasia.

Because of privacy laws, we cannot comment on a specific patient’s medical condition. We can share, however, how we address end-of-life care. End-of-life care is focused on comfort care during the dying process. We communicate closely with the patient or, if they are unable to participate in conversation, with their designated decision-maker if they have one. We do our best to honor the patient’s known wishes, whether those wishes are to prolong life or to stop treatment.

Euthanasia is illegal in the State of Minnesota, and our health system does not practice it.

It is always our goal to provide medically appropriate and ethical care and comfort to our patients with the utmost dignity and honor.

Snyder expressed confidence that the widespread attention brought to Cassidy’s treatment would be instrumental in ensuring that Cassidy’s wishes to live going forward are respected.

“It is time for us to have a larger conversation about the inherent value of every human life and about our moral obligation to protect those who are most vulnerable,” she remarked.

She said LLDF had heard from people who could not believe that Cassidy could have her oxygen withdrawn, when it would clearly mean ending her life.

“People need to wake up to the fact that this is happening,” Snyder told LifeSiteNews. “And that they need to fight for themselves and for their loved ones.”

Full Article & Source:
U.S. hospital will not remove oxygen from elderly woman who says on video ‘I want to live’

Remembering Anastasia Adams: Prevent Hospitals from Seeking Guardianship As Means 2 Override Patient Rights

Inova Fairfax Hospital CMO Scott Betzelos, MD January 28, 2017 Meeting

 

Petition Update click here

Dec 11, 2017 —It has been 23 days since my beloved and precious sister Anastasia was killed by Inova Fairfax Hospital and their designated guardians Anne Heishman and Kenneth Labowitz. I have been re-listening to various meetings and discussions with Inova physicians and others involved in her unnatural and untimely death.  I have been going over medical records and evidence sent to me by various individuals who did not agree with what Inova’s guardians were doing.  And since her death three words amongst other things have been prevalent in my mind… premeditated, homicide, and guilty.

During the January 28, 2017 meeting with Chief Medical Officer Scott Betzelos, MD, and Inova’s outside counsel Laurie Kirkland from Blankenship & Keith, PC, Inova was informed that I agreed with Anastasia’s discharge so why did Inova still pursue and take guardianship of Anastasia.  As you listen to the meeting with Scott Betzelos, MD, the discussion with Lindsey from Inova’s Palliative Care team, and read the records and notes written by Kelly Armstrong, PhD and the head of palliative care it brings certain things to light and bring the following questions to mind:

https://abductionofanastasia.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/cmo-betzelos-meeting-january-28-2017.mp3

“Pt is opioid naive” written by Mary Wheeler, NP, Inova Palliative Care Team. Naive: “not having previously been the subject of a scientific experiment, as an animal.”

Nurse Practitioner Mary Wheeler ordered increases in morphine when Anastasia came down with a hospital born infection or after the results from the pericardial effusion but decreased her morphine when she showed signs of improvement… why?

Definition of terms, we as a society work under specific definition of terms regarding social norms and morays. By inserting specific terms or language into medical charts it can and does completely change the intent and meaning. Perfect example is “irreversible” disease/condition and “terminal” disease/condition.

Do hospitals intentionally or subconsciously allow bad bedsores to justify palliative care and the ending of lives. Inova Palliative care social worker, Lindsay N. Teich, specifically stated when talking about ending life “if she had really bad wounds, maybe down to the bone, or was causing pain when you turn her” … this is almost verbatim what Labowitz claimed in his written communications. We were clear Anastasia was not going on palliative care, that we/she did not want or need to be on palliative care. Mary Wheeler, NP, pushed for comfort care.

Hospitals and nursing facilities get dinged by Medicare if patients return to the hospital within 10-30 days. So to prevent from getting dinged are hospitals and nursing facilities intentionally placing elder and disabled patients on palliative care?

How can an informed decision about discharge, a safe discharge, be made without all of the facts including if the receiving SNF is capable of providing or willing to provide all of the needed care?

Inova CMO Scott Betzelos, MD was aware discharge had been appealed to Medicare and also should have known that an appeal directly to Medicare in DC invalidates Kepro reconsideration decision.

Bottom line Inova Fairfax Hospital should not have discharged Anastasia when they did, should not have sought guardianship until after the Medicare decision was issued by the ALJ, and by doing both not only enabled and culpable in her death but also in my opinion are accessory’s to her murder.

In Fact Anastasia was discharged and sent to Dulles Health and Rehab without of all of her medications and the Lovenox was stopped right after she was admitted to DHR. If Lovenox was given by Inova as a prophylaxis and standard of care for bedridden patients and Anastasia was sent with that order why then did DHR discontinue the Lovenox?

In Fact Dulles Health and Rehab changed Anastasia’s regular nebulizer treatment to PRN. Envoy of Alexandria discontinued them entirely. They claim they were given but evidence shows they did not.

CMO Scott Betzelos states Yolanda needed to give the Inova “physicians the latitude and level of trust that they have and level of knowledge they have that they are not going to discharge somebody in an unstable condition.” Seriously??

CMO Scott Betzelos states “whatever treatment, therapy, or medication Anastasia needs we will make sure she will receive, be discharged with.” Anastasia was discharged and sent to DHR without all her needed medications. DHR tried but were unable to reach the guardians for 4 days to get authorization so they could get her medications.

I love you Anastasia and I miss you.

Your baby sister

Full Article & Source:
Remembering Anastasia Adams: Prevent Hospitals from Seeking Guardianship As Means 2 Override Patient Rights 

See Also:
Disabled woman denied food, water, and healthcare in a nursing home

Disabled woman denied food, water, and healthcare in a nursing home

ANNANDALE, Virginia, April 20, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – A disabled Virginia woman who was being starved at a nursing home there is now getting food and water, but her family and attorneys are sounding the alarm because she is still at risk and not receiving adequate care.

Yolanda Bell, sister of Anastasia Adams, contacted Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) on behalf of Adams.

Adams was denied treatment for a blood clot and had her guardianship filched away before she was then clandestinely taken to an undisclosed facility. After several questionable injuries in a short time there, Adams was moved back to the hospital and put into hospice care, where she had been denied nutrition. Treatment is still being withheld.

“The family is Catholic and Anastasia has communicated that she wants to live,” said LLDF Executive Director Alexandra Snyder. “Anastasia does not have a terminal disease — the hospital is simply refusing to treat her and instead wants to put her to death.” 

Snyder told LifeSiteNews that Adams is now receiving food and water, though only because more people were beginning to take note of the case. But in lieu of needed treatment, she’s only getting palliative care.

“This woman has family who loves her and wants to care for her,” said Snyder. “But they (hospital officials) have her on a death track.”

Adams was wheelchair bound after suffering a brain injury over 10 years ago, but she was able to speak and interact with family. Bell was the legal durable and healthcare power of attorney for over 12 years while Adams was in a nursing home. 

Several months ago, Adams developed a large blood clot while in INOVA Fair Oaks Hospital, Snyder explained. The hospital refused to treat her and ordered that Adams be discharged. 

When Bell refused to move her sister out of INOVA, the hospital took her to court and had its own guardians appointed to oversee Adams’ care. 

Snyder told LifeSiteNews, “The hospital said, ‘Instead of treating her, we’re just going to take you to court.’”

“It’s horrible,” she continued. “They don’t like her questioning their protocol. She just wanted her sister treated and released and home.” 

The guardians sent Adams to a nursing home without notifying the family, forcing Bell to have to track her down hours later because the nursing staff had been advised not to disclose any information. While in the nursing home, Adams suffered four injuries in two weeks, including a broken hip.

“To have two complete strangers come and just take her is just outrageous,” Snyder said. “They just dumped her in the facility.”

Bell has established a Change.org petition and Facebook page, where she’s telling her sister’s story. The petition is addressed to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and others. The objective is to prevent hospitals from seeking guardianship as a means to override patient rights.

“I am heartbroken beyond words,” Bell posted on Easter Sunday. “I fear for my sister’s life every minute of every day.”

“To have strangers come in and forcibly tear you from your loved ones, to abduct your person, because that is exactly what this is — an abduction — is terrifying for a person with a brain injury and other such patients,” Bell wrote in the petition. “It is terrifying for an incapacitated person who has relied heavily on and whose life, happiness and well-being has depended on a family member.”

She told of how she has watched her sister “whimper and cry out in fear since guardianship of her was awarded to Inova Fairfax Hospital appointed guardians.”

“I have had to watch the expression of fear on her face while being told lawyers would now be her guardians and that I no longer had control over where she lived, who would be caring for her, what medications she could or could not be given, or treatments she would or would receive,” Bell stated.

When Adams was transferred back to INOVA in March because of the broken hip, the guardians refused to authorize any treatment, said Snyder. Instead, they put her in hospice care at a Golden LivingCenter nursing facility in Annandale.

Snyder told LifeSiteNews that as a result of the court action before LLDF involvement, not only has the hospital seized power over Adams’ treatment decisions, Bell is not permitted to visit her sister. 

“Yolanda lost all contact,” Snyder stated.

"I miss my sister terribly,” said Bell. “I can only imagine what she is going through. She must think I have abandoned her. I have trouble sleeping. I close my eyes and see her being beaten and abused. I hear her crying out in pain begging me to help her." 

Adams now has a fever, Snyder told LifeSiteNews, but treatment is still being refused.

“Even though they’re not starving her, they’re just waiting for her to die,” said Snyder.

LLDF has release two videos, one taken prior to her being admitted to the hospital and the second taken at the nursing facility on April 8 showing Adams’ shocking decline.

LLDF is currently assisting the family in securing an attorney to recover Adams’ guardianship back to another sibling. 

“Tragically, we are seeing an exponential increase in cases where patients are intentionally starved to death because someone has determined that their lives no longer have value,” Snyder stated. 

“Anastasia was targeted for death simply because she is disabled. But she can speak, feel pain, and fully understands what is happening to her. She is being tortured to death by healthcare professionals who have it in their capacity to provide care and treatment.”

Full Article & Source:
Disabled woman denied food, water, and healthcare in a nursing home

Attorneys fight to save life of CA man

Joe Williams collapsed in a hospital emergency room nearly eighteen months ago and suffered a major disability as a result.

He has responded to therapy that needs to continue, but a caregiver has sought to have him taken off life support.

He went without food for two weeks before Life Legal Defense Foundation intervened. Foundation director Alexandra Snyder tells OneNewsNow that the organization is fighting attorneys representing the other side.

"One of whom is Jon Eisenberg," she says, "who was the attorney for Michael Schiavo and who ultimately succeeded in getting Terri Schiavo killed, death by dehydration.”

Schiavo suffered brain damage during a heart attack and she died in 2005 after her husband persuaded courts to order life support removed.

Joining Eisenberg in the Williams' caregiver's case is an attorney from Compassion and Choices, an organization that promotes doctor-assisted suicide.

“So for the other side, this is no longer about Joe,” says Snyder. "It's no longer about compassion.

This is about an agenda and that agenda says if you're too needy, you're too dependent, you're too burdensome, you're too expensive, then you have to die.”

Life Legal has an agenda too, and that is to obtain court-ordered treatment for Williams to sustain his life and ultimately to return home for continued treatment.

Full Article & Source:
Attorneys fight to save life of CA man