Last week, Not Dead Yet filed an amicus brief in Betancourt v. Trinitas, an Appellate court case in New Jersey. In additon to NDY, ADAPT, Center For Self-Determination, National Council on Independent Living, National Spinal Cord Injury Association, American Association of People with Disabilities, and Disability Rights New Jersey joined the brief as co-amici.
Here’s a summary of the case taken from the introduction of the NDY amicus brief:
Trinitas Hospital, the institution where Mr. Betancourt resided from July 3, 2008, until May 29, 2009, determined of its own accord to withdraw life-sustaining treatment from him. Treating him, the hospital’s doctors said, was “harming” him because it was “futile,” since he would not recover from the brain damage he had incurred post-operatively at Trinitas on January 22, 2008, and that he was “dying,” despite having no terminal diagnosis. Mr. Betancourt was not brain dead, and the doctors could not even agree as to whether or not he would die within the year. In fact, one said, “This could go on for quite some time.”
The doctors also referred to an unpaid hospital bill of $1.6 million in the context of their determination to withdraw treatment. They sought initially to withdraw dialysis, and then, respiratory ventilation, and nutrition and hydration. Trinitas had been unable to transfer Mr. Betancourt to any other facility.
Mr. Betancourt’s family opposed the hospital’s decision to terminate, and in January, 2009, sought the protection of the courts. The trial court found, upon a three-day hearing record and following long-established New Jersey law, that Mr. Betancourt’s daughter should be appointed his guardian and surrogate decisionmaker for medical treatment, and that Trinitas and its personnel must follow her direction in exercising her father’s right to choose whether or not to continue treatment.
Trinitas appealed, arguing that the doctors alone, not the patient or his surrogate, have the right to determine when to terminate care. They also contest the daughter’s appointment as guardian. Ruben Betancourt died on May 29, 2009. His daughter moved to dismiss the case, but Trinitas has opposed the dismissal.
Reading the brief, one aspect is familiar, calling to mind other cases in which PVS was alleged. Family members who visited Ruben Betancourt every day report he was responsive. The brief also states that notes in his medical chart occasionally described him as “awake” and “responsive.”
The entire brief, written and submitted to the court by Anne L. H. Studholme, Esq., is available online at this location as a microsoft word document (not docx).
Dear Heavens… a doctor alone?? Are they kidding? They are just people and not just strangers, but strangers with ulterior motives in these cases…
I read the claim and am worried by it. The patient’s position “As God wills…” was long ago reached but for artificial means to keep him alive. There is a danger in seeing medical equipment as coming from God.
IMO the patient should have been allowed an end to his suffering. He was clearly suffering and had he been on a desert island would have had the “God willing” death a long time ago.
There is a danger in seeming ridiculous about right to life. Your amicus could be causing irritation to the public and endangering the lives of people far less ill than Mr Betancourt.
It is really important to be intelligent about this issue. Life support equipment is to help a patient, not BECOME the patient.
This man was wronged after his operation, that much is clear. His family might have sued for this at that time. Is there some other reason for this suit that is being downplayed? Like, holding on to life for habeus corpus?
Man this is so literal, and yes it is the only way to get these medical people but still… Mr Betancourt was suffering the physical part of the theoretical pain.
Terri,
“strangers with ulterior motives” is extremely relevant to the case. There were allegations of malpractice and the hospital was aware that the support of a living Mr. Betancourt could cost them a lot more in a malpractice settlement than if he died.
misterc,
The question is “who decides?” And if the hospital has its way with Mr. Betancourt, then what is next?
It sounds like plain old murder to me.
The problem is this:
Ethics are used as the excuse in these things, and ethics are increasingly created and adjusted because in a mixed society one religion can blur another’s boundaries for convenience. Of course this flies in the face of what ethics are but nowadays anything can be done as long as there are people willing to do it. And willing to tolerate it. Politcal correctness has made people succumb to anything where objecting will get you seen as nuts.
The way to create an ethic is in fact to get the public to WANT the controversial thing in question. It’s simply nudged in over time. Some “schm-ethics” take longer to gestate than others. But they all get there because the public is manipulated to completely miss the issue. Deception is the tool and goal…
The notion being pushed on the public in this regard is that families are unreasonable when they insist on keeping truly terminal patients on life support. Truly terminal is when the patient would be dead in all ways but for a machine. Mr Betancourt had all kinds of failures and infections. He should not be in this debate.
With the public nodding in approval on this score (and it is correct in this narrow context) this byte of wisdom then extends to people who aren’t terminal simply because the public has visited that spot, and doesn’t have the attention span to zoom out for the whole picture.
When the public seems on side (even if it’s only for an extreme case of the issue at hand) the damn ethicists say the public agrees to everything that can be stuffed into the category. What’s actually going on is that the public is bored. They have other things to do and as long as the thing isn’t a plane crash, they don’t care.
Ethicists love a jaded public. It gives them the basket to hold everything they are told to go and scrounge.
This is why I have misgivings about the Betancourt case. It tells the public, the one that justifies the “ethic,” that anyone who believes in the right to life is some idiot who wants to abuse hospital beds and machines, and especially the poor relative who has the stick of life up his nose.
I can see the point that a doctor shouldn’t decide but heck in the Betancourt case, it was obvious. Even a monkey could decide that one.
The Kaylee Wallace case is a better one for this amicus. Or Annie Farlow.
The rub lies in the fact that doctors only decide obvious cases and make their decision openly there. So that they look reasonable and if a family objects, the doctor looks even more reasonable in wanting to save resources and end suffering.
In the Wallace and Farlow cases respectively, doctors were careful to appear mistaken in the first, and in the second, do it without telling anyone. This makes my skin crawl.
It’s a pity there isn’t more opportunity to be an amicus in a case like Kaylee Wallace’s. Is Barbara Farlow going the court route?
All this doctors-declaring-death business is ultimately geared to the organ trade. It will be huge in the future if the public continues to help the ethicists along. We must never forget the power of a bored public. A public afraid to speak its mind is also a problem. As I write this post, I even wonder if it will be published because I don’t speak in cliches… and might appear like someone with an anger management problem. You know how it goes… Independent thought =mental problem=removal.