The Democrat & Chronicle reports that Dorothy Livadas died after being removed from her ventilator today:
Strong Memorial Hospital officials confirmed that Dorothy Livadas, the 97-year-old Rochester woman whose end-of-life care was the center of a months-long legal battle, died this afternoon. Livadas had remained on a ventilator for about seven months, while her daughter Ianthe and health care providers disputed her wishes in court.
Hospital doctors and representatives from Catholic Family Center, Dorothy’s court-appointed guardian, had argued in court papers that the woman’s living will clearly states that she would not want to survive by artificial means. Ianthe contended that her mother should have been given every chance to recover from what doctors labeled an irreversible coma.
According to Ianthe, hospital staff had planned to disconnect Dorothy from the ventilator at about 12:30 p.m. today, nine days after an appellate division of the state Supreme Court refused to extend the deadline for legal challenges to plans to remove life support.
Catholic Family Center has repeatedly declined to comment on the case.
It’s pretty likely that, given the strategic timing of Dorothy Livadas’s death, there won’t be much more coverage than this. –Stephen Drake
I can not understand what the legal bettle is all about. Dorothy wishes was stated clearly stated in her WILL. I can also understand her daughter’s stand. It is sometimes tough to let a parent die. Even as adult, we somtimes hope that our parent stays with us forever. But unfortunately nature must take its’ course.
Josephine.
Josephine,
I thought this was spelled out pretty clearly – here and elsewhere. The directions of Ianthe Livadas – personally selected as surrogate decisionmaker by her mother – were in apparent conflict with the directions in the living will Dorothy Livada signed.
Both the Living Will and the appointed proxy have legal standing – the hospital wanted a ruling from the court to sort the matter out in a way that would leave them free of liability. –Stephen Drake