Bobby Schlindler on The Shannon Joy Show - 08 July 2022

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Bobby Schlindler on The Shannon Joy Show - 08 July 2022

Bobby Schindler Testifies Before Ohio Senate Committee

Today, Bobby Schindler, President of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, testified before the Ohio Senate Health Committee on Senate Bill 151, commonly known as Emery and Elliot’s Law.

 

 

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Bobby Schindler Testifies Before Ohio Senate Committee

Doctors Refused Mother’s Wish to Treat 20-Year-Old “Brain Dead” Son After Auto Accident, So He Died

by Bobby Schindler

On May 31, 2002, 18-year-old Brenden Flynn was involved in an auto accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was med-flighted to a hospital in Syracuse, New York.

Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to Park Ridge Hospital near Rochester, where doctors notified his mother, MaryJo Flynn, that Brenden had a zero chance of recovery or having any meaningful “quality of life.” They suggested ending his life.

If Brenden were to survive, his doctors said, he would be in a nursing home for the rest of his life. Brenden’s mother, not wanting to make the decision to end her son’s life so quickly, asked the doctors to continue treating him.

On September 9, 2019, 20-year-old Brandon Fuller was involved in an auto accident and experienced a traumatic brain injury and was med-flighted to Sanford Medical Center, located in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Shortly thereafter, doctors informed his mother, Amanda King, that Brandon was “brain dead” and had a zero chance of recovery or any meaningful “quality of life” and suggested ending his life. Brandon’s mother, not wanting to make the decision to end her son’s life so quickly, asked the doctors to continue treating him.

Brenden Flynn was afforded more time. Today, Brenden is happily married to his wife of ten years, Nicole, and they have four beautiful children.

Brandon Fuller was not afforded more time. His mother’s requests were denied. Today, Brandon Fuller is dead.

In response to the death of my sister, Terri Schiavo, in March 2005, my family established the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, which provides a 24/7 National Crisis Lifeline service for families to call if a family member or at-risk patient is having life-sustaining care either denied or withdrawn. Since its inception, the service has assisted on average nearly 20 patients and families in crisis per month, including Brandon Fuller’s mother.

Sadly, it has become disturbingly evident that we are witnessing a deterioration of our health care system, one by which treatment decisions made in the best interest of the patient—as determined by their family—are rapidly abandoned for those made in the best interest of the hospital.

Sanford Medical Center refused King’s request for additional time after the hospital’s ethics committee agreed with their doctor that Brandon was not going to improve. As a result, within a week of Brandon’s brain injury a day and time were scheduled to remove his ventilator. However, Brandon died before this could take place, as a consequence of the hospital’s refusal to treat his blood pressure, which was unstable due to his medical condition.

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Doctors Refused Mother’s Wish to Treat 20-Year-Old “Brain Dead” Son After Auto Accident, So He Died

14 Years After They Starved My Sister to Death, We Must Never Forget Terri Schiavo

Every year, I write to honor my sister, Terri Schiavo, on March 31^st, the anniversary of her death. For those who do not remember, Terri, at the age of 26, experienced a still inexplicable collapse resulting in a severe brain-injury. As a consequence of her brain injury, she was unable to swallow using conventional utensils, and like many Americans required nutrition and hydration by feeding tube in order to live.

Terri did not have a medical directive specifying who would make her health care decisions in the event she was incapable of making them herself. Therefore, it was her husband, Michael Schiavo, who was appointed by the court to be her medical caretaker and was ostensibly the only person who would decide what type of care, if any, Terri would receive.

Initially, my family did not anticipate this would be an issue. But that changed after Michael obtained a million-dollar medical malpractice settlement on Terri and his behalf. Before the settlement, Michael discussed continuing rehabilitation. Afterwards, he tried to deny her antibiotics when Terri came down with a urinary tract infection. But when my family sued, he relented.

It was in 1997, and as a consequence of Michael not having the permission to end Terri’s life by denying treating her UTI, Michael petitioned a Florida court, for consent to remove Terri’s feeding tube with the intent being that she dies by starvation and dehydration.

My family objected vehemently and offered to care for Terri in her disabled condition and provide ongoing appropriate therapy that was positively impacting her brain-injury. By this time, Michael was living with a woman he called his “fiancé,” with whom he eventually sired two children.

Despite this clear personal conflict of interest – and the financial benefit he would receive by inheriting Terri’s estate from the malpractice case – the judge believed testimony that Terri simply “wanted” to die.

Sadly, after a protected legal battle, Michael was successful, and on March 18^th, 2005, Terri’s feeding tube was removed, beginning a steady and extended death lasting almost two-weeks. I witnessed the process. Believe me, it was an agonizing and merciless demise.

It was during my families very public battle with Terri’s husband that we were often asked whether Terri documented who would care for her in the case of her incapacitation. In other words, did she have an advanced medical directive that specified a health care surrogate. That’s an important issue.

Each year there are over a million Americans who experience brain-injury. In fact, brain-injury is leading cause of death and disability in the US and can, at least initially, impact a person ability to make competent medical decisions. Indeed, with no previously chosen person to act as your medical decision maker and depending on the laws of the state where you live, a large portion of these cases will default to a spouse or family member deciding next medical steps.

In worse case scenarios, and depending on the circumstances, patients can be subjected to medical decisions that are made by the hospitals where they are admitted. This is because hospitals are now empowered to decide whether treatment will be continued or stopped by what is termed as “futile care theory”.

Even those who sign an advance directive requesting continuing care are not necessarily safe. “Medical futility”, sometimes called “futile care” or “inappropriate care,” permits strangers – bioethicists or doctors – to have the final say about a patient’s care, even if the patient has expressly detailed their medical treatment wishes in an advance directive or by identifying a health care surrogate.

These “futile” care determination can happen by either denying (or withdrawing) care when they conclude that a patient’s “quality of life” is arbitrarily “too low” to justify care or the cost of treatment that is, in fact, working by allowing them to continue living. For example, it would be as if doctors vetoed a decision by Michael and my family to continue Terri’s care.

Exacerbating these situations is the legality (and the common practice) to deny/withhold food and water (via feeding tubes). Understand that these are not cases of refusing extraordinary and disproportionate care when one is truly near death, rather the denial/withdrawn of basic and ordinary care to knowingly cause death.

Unfortunately, this is the economic and ideological reality of today’s health care system and is the reason the autonomy of a patient is susceptible by hospital refusal to provide the life-affirming treatment that patients are requesting, and treatment that is helping them.

Ironically, as medicine and ethicists push for a patient’s autonomy, the direction of today’s health care is to control treatment (or the patient) even in such case when a patient is clearly asking for certain treatment as in futile care judgments.

Notwithstanding these possible scenarios, executing a health care power of attorney can help safeguard access to treatment, including basic care, food and water, as well as other forms of appropriate care.

It is harder to impose futile care on a patient who has stated in writing they want treatment and have appointed a surrogate to carry out those instructions. A health care power of attorney is a document that allows you to designate a specific, trusted person to make critical medical decisions if you are not able to speak for yourself.

Equally important is whoever you designate your health care surrogate, they will need to understand the patient’s rights, without being frightened by clinicians or hospital administrators if there is a disagreement over medical treatment.

Appointing a health care surrogate is a simple and not only the smart way, but the best way to ensure that ethical and appropriate decisions are made by someone trusted and can act in a way that advance directives simply are unable to do.

Full Article & Source:
14 Years After They Starved My Sister to Death, We Must Never Forget Terri Schiavo

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

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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. 

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

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

Assisted Suicide

Question:
Is Assisted Suicide Legal in the United States?

Answer:
Yes, assisted suicide is legal in the states of Montana, Oregon and Washington. Vermont has also passed a doctor-prescribed suicide bill, and earlier this year a judge ruled to allow it for terminally ill patients in New Mexico..

 

Sadly, what was once considered immoral is now being accepted by many. We will only see a rise in these so called "death with dignity" bills in other states.

We here at the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network believe in promoting a Culture of Life by embracing the true meaning of compassion by opposing the practice of imposed death. We must love and care for those who are sick and dying, not kill them.

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Facebook:  Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network

Learn more on the law in your state

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