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MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Granddaughter yanks grandma's feeding tube
81-year-old neither terminally ill, comatose, nor in vegetative state
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Posted: April 7, 2005
7:33 p.m. Eastern
By Sarah Foster
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
In a situation recalling the recent death of Terri Schiavo in Florida, an 81-year-old widow, denied nourishment and fluids for nearly two weeks, is clinging to life in a hospice in LaGrange, Ga., while her immediate family fights desperately to save her life before she dies of starvation and dehydration.
Mae Magouirk was neither terminally ill, comatose nor in a "vegetative state," when Hospice-LaGrange accepted her as a patient about two weeks ago upon the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, 36, an elementary school teacher.
Also upon Gaddy's request and without prior legal authority, since March 28 Hospice-LaGrange has denied Magouirk normal nourishment or fluids via a feeding tube through her nose or fluids via an IV. She has been kept sedated with morphine and ativan, a powerful tranquillizer.
Her nephew, Ken Mullinax, told WorldNetDaily that although Magouirk is given morphine and ativan, she has not received any medication to keep her eyes lubricated during her forced dehydration.
"They haven't given her anything like that for two weeks," said Mullinax. "She can't produce tears."
The dehydration is being done in defiance of Magouirk's specific wishes, which she set down in a "living will," and without agreement of her closest living next-of-kin, two siblings and a nephew: A. Byron McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ga.; Ruth Mullinax, 74, of Birmingham, Ala.; and Ruth Mullinax's son, Ken Mullinax.
Magouirk's husband and only child, a son, are both deceased.
In her living will, Magouirk stated that fluids and nourishment were to be withheld only if she were either comatose or "vegetative," and she is neither. Nor is she terminally ill, which is generally a requirement for admission to a hospice.
Magouirk lives alone in LaGrange, though because of glaucoma she relied on her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, to bring her food and do errands.
Two weeks ago, Magouirk's aorta had a dissection, and she was hospitalized in the local LaGrange Hospital. Her aortic problem was determined to be severe, and she was admitted to the intensive care unit. At the time of her admission she was lucid and had never been diagnosed with dementia.
Claiming that she held Magouirk's power of attorney, Gaddy had her transferred to Hospice-LaGrange, a 16-bed unit owned by the same family that owns the hospital. Once at the hospice, Gaddy stated that she did not want her grandmother fed or given water.
"Grandmama is old and I think it is time she went home to Jesus," Gaddy told Magouirk's brother and nephew, McLeod and Ken Mullinax. "She has glaucoma and now this heart problem, and who would want to live with disabilities like these?"
Gaddy's telephone is not in operation and she could not be reached for comment.
According to Mullinax, his aunt's local cardiologist in LaGrange, Dr. James Brennan, and Dr. Raed Agel, a highly acclaimed cardiologist at the nationally renowned University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, determined that her aortic dissection is contained and not life-threatening at the moment.
Mullinax also states that Gaddy did not hold power of attorney, a fact he learned from the hospice's in-house legal counsel, Carol Todd.
On March 31, Todd told Ruth and Ken Mullinax during a phone conversation Georgia law stipulated that Ruth Mullinax and her brother, A.B. McLeod, were entitled to make any and all decisions for Magouirk. Ruth Mullinax immediately told Todd to begin administering food and fluids through an IV and a nasal feeding tube.
Todd had the IV fluids started that evening, but informed the family that they would have to come to the hospice to sign papers to have the feeding tube inserted. Once that was done, Magouirk would not be able to stay at the hospice.
Ken Mullinax recalled that Todd said the only reason Magouirk was in the hospice in the first place was that the LaGrange Hospital had failed to exercise due diligence in closely examining the power of attorney Beth Gaddy said she had, as well as exercising the provisions of Magouirk's living will.
Todd explained that Gaddy had only a financial power of attorney, not a medical power of attorney, and Magouirk's living will carefully provided that a feeding tube and fluids should only be discontinued if she was comatose or in a "vegetative state" and she was neither.
Gaddy, however, was not dissuaded. When Ken Mullinax and McLeod showed up at the hospice the following day, April 1, to meet with Todd and arrange emergency air transport for Magouirk's transfer to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, Hospice-LaGrange stalled them while Gaddy went before Troup County, Ga., Probate Court Judge Donald W. Boyd and obtained an emergency guardianship over her grandmother.
Under the terms of his ruling, Gaddy was granted full and absolute authority over Magouirk, at least for the weekend. She took advantage of her judge-granted power by ordering her grandmother's feeding tube pulled out, just hours after it had been inserted.
Florida law requires that a hearing for an emergency guardianship must be held within three days of its request, and Magouirk's hearing was held April 4 before Judge Boyd. Apparently, he has not made a final ruling, but favors giving permanent guardianship power to Gaddy, who is anxious to end her grandmother's life.
Ron Panzer, president and founder of Hospice Patients Alliance, a patients' rights advocacy group based in Michigan, told WND that what is happening to Magouirk is not at all unusual.
"This is happening in hospices all over the country," he said. "Patients who are not dying are not terminal are admitted [to hospice] and the hospice will say they are terminally ill even if they're not. There are thousands of cases like this. Patients are given morphine and ativan to sedate them. If feeding is withheld, they die within 10 days to two weeks. It's really just a form of euthanasia."
Ken Mullinax does not want that to happen to his aunt. He pointed out that one of the ironies in this tragedy is that the now-helpless woman worked for years as a secretary for a prominent local cancer doctor.
"She devoted her whole life to helping those who heal others, and now she's being denied sustenance for life," he said.
Mullinax said he has begged Gaddy to let him take on full responsibility for his aunt's care.
"If she would just give us a chance to keep Aunt Mae alive, that's all we ask," he said. "They [Beth and her husband, Dennis Gaddy] have a family and Beth is a teacher, and it was just getting to be a lot of trouble. But I'm the caregiver for my mom, and Aunt Mae could move in with us. We'll buy another house with a bedroom and we'll take care of her. She can move in with us once she can leave the hospital."
But her health becomes more precarious by the hour. Her vital signs are still good, but since admission to hospice she has not been lucid "but who would be since nourishment and fluids have been denied since March 28," Mullinax remarked.
Attorney Carol Todd could not be reached for comment; a message on her voicemail said she would not be gone the entire week of April 4. Hospice-LaGrange did not return phone calls.
Bonnie said:Oh Fantastic! Pretty soon we'll need to have those on feeding tubes go underground in safe houses away from their "loving" relatives.
freeandfun1 said:You know that many will repy with the, "yeah, but she's 81..."
Well, as you see, the standards are being lowered. Next age won't matter either....
Kathianne said:I don't think the American people will accept euthanasia, which this is all about. Time will tell of course, but I certainly cannot understand something like this.
The tie between Hitler and the eugenic psychiatrists was so close that much of Mein Kampf is literally indistinguishable in language and in tone from the major international journals and psychiatric textbooks of the time. To quote from a few of many such passages in Mein Kampf:
"To demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring is a demand for the clearest reason and, if systematically executed, represents the most humane act of mankind ..."
"Those who are physically and mentally unhealthy and unworthy must not perpetuate their ;suffering in the bodies of their children ..."
"A prevention of the faculty and opportunity to procreate on the part of the physically degenerate and the mentally sick ... would not only free humanity from an immeasurable misfortune but would lead to a recovery which today seems scarcely conceivable."
PSYCHIATRISTS TOOK THE INITIATIVE
The psychiatric extermination program was not a hidden, secret shame of psychiatry - at least, not at the start. It was organised by leading professors of psychiatry and directors of mental hospitals through a series of national meetings and workshops. So-called euthanasia forms were circulated to individual hospitals, and final approval of each death was then given in Berlin by a committee of the nation's outstanding psychiatrists. By January 1940 patients were being shipped to six special extermination centres staffed by psychiatrists. In late 1941, public outrage and lack of enthusiasm from Hitler pushed the program underground, but between 100,000 and 200,000 German mental patients had been killed. From then on, individual institutions, such as that at Kaufbeuren, continued to act on their own, even admitting new patients for the purpose of murdering them. At the end of the war, many large institutions were entirely empty, and estimates from various war-crime tribunals, including Nuremberg, estimate the number of dead to be between 250,000 and 300,000, mostly inmates of psychiatric hospitals and homes for the retarded...
Bonnie said:I don't know Kathianne, when abortion was first legalized I doubt many thought it would come to the barbaricy of partial birth abortion either.
Florida law requires that a hearing for an emergency guardianship must be held within three days of its request, and Magouirk's hearing was held April 4 before Judge Boyd. Apparently, he has not made a final ruling, but favors giving permanent guardianship power to Gaddy, who is anxious to end her grandmother's life.
Makes me suspect of the entire post.Georgia law requires that a hearing for an emergency guardianship must be held within three days of its request, and Magouirk's hearing was held April 4 before Judge Boyd. Apparently, he has not made a final ruling, but favors giving permanent guardianship power to Gaddy, who is anxious to end her grandmother's life.
Mr. P said:Post reads:
The link reads:
Makes me suspect of the entire post.
Kathianne said:I don't think the American people will accept euthanasia, which this is all about. Time will tell of course, but I certainly cannot understand something like this.
Mr. P said:Post reads:
The link reads:
Makes me suspect of the entire post.
Nope..I'm in the same boat.locknload said:I don't wish to be negative, but am I the only one who finds this story only reported by blogsforterri.com, prolifeblogs.com, and some other bloggers, and all seemingly from one article from http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43688?
Why havent the alphabet media picked up and run with this?
UPDATE 1(noticed question in comments about authentication): This was confirmed by lengthy telephone call before it was posted. I personally spoke with Kenneth Mullinax, and have more details than has been posted. We do need to seek copies of court documents for posting
From: The Family of Mae Magouirk
To: BlogsForTerri and their readers
Subject: Family Seeking Help From BFT Bloggers and Media
April 6, 2005
Contact: Kenneth Mullinax Ph: 205-408-7598
mailto:[email protected]
Why is Hospice LaGrange, Ga. withholding nourishment?
Mae Magouirk is being withheld nourishment and fluids and the Provisions of her Living Will are not being honored at the Hospice-LaGrange, (1510 Vernon Street, LaGrange Troup County Georgia, (706-845-3905) a subsidiary of the LaGrange Hospital in LaGrange Georgia.
freeandfun1 said:This is appearing on all the sites now, so if you do not want to believe it or cannot believe it for whatever reason, here are the numbers for you to check yourself.
