Canadian Death Panel

[chanel]

The Canadian family of a 13-month-old boy clinging to life support has defied a court order to remove the boy’s breathing tube and now is looking to an American hospital for what experts say would be a miracle recovery.

The boy, Joseph Maraachli, has been in a vegetative state at a hospital in London, Ontario, since last fall. He’s been treated for a neurodegenerative disease that doctors ruled leaves no hope for the boy.

A Superior Court judge, in turn, ordered that Maraachli’s breathing tube be removed on Monday. But his family refused, insisting that the boy be released to his family’s care, according to CBC News.

“I belive in my son,” Moe Maraachli, the boy's father, told Fox News on Monday. “I will never let my son die in the doctors’ way.”

The family says removing the ventilator would promise an agonizing death for the boy. They asked that doctors at least perform a tracheotomy that would allow Joseph to die at home, but the Canadian hospital has refused.

The parents now are trying to move their son to a Detroit hospital. The Children's Hospital of Michigan agreed to look at Joseph's lengthy medical record and determine whether he's a candidate for transfer.

Read more: FoxNews.com - Canadian Family Fights to Keep Boy's Breathing Tube in Place

So sad.

Comments?

 

[George Costanza]

From reading the article, it is not clear to me who sought the court order. The article hints that it was "the doctors," but that is never made fully clear.

 

[spectrumc01]

Not so much a "death" panel as a "mercy" panel. I for one have it in writing that I am not to be kept alive by machines.

After watching the Republicans, the religious right, and any other moron with a camera in his/her face touting their form of spiritual morality over the Terry Schivo affair can blow me. I found it quite amusing after the autopsy was completed that it was found that her brain was indeed dead and had been for quite some time.

I hope the hospital in Detroit has enough common sense to keep their nose in their own business. I hope for the childs sake he is allowed to die, I hope for the parents that it can be done at home, and I hope that the media will leave these people to grieve in private.