Sad News: The Passing of Disability Rights Attorney Andres Gallegos

We learned of this yesterday in a message shared by his family:

It is with tremendous sadness that we share the passing of our father. Andrés passed away on the afternoon of December 1st, surrounded by his family and wrapped in love. While there will never be a time that we are ready to say goodbye to him, his legacy, his love, and his impact on this world will stand the test of time. We appreciate the love and support from the many who were inspired by Dad, and by those who loved and knew him. 

As a family we will be taking to time reflect and heal. We plan to hold a celebration of his life and his legacy in the next few months. If you would like to honor Andrés and help continue his life’s work of advocating for the disability community, please donate in his name to Access Living, the American Association of People with Disabilities, or your local Center for Independent Living.

– The Gallegos Family

As many of our readers will remember, Andrés Gallegos was the disability rights attorney who assisted Michael Hickson’s widow in suing the hospital that refused to treat her brain injured husband for Covid. Some of the pre-history of that case is described in several NDY blogs including this about complaints to the Office for Civil Rights.

Jules Good retold the Michael Hickson story in a 2022 vlog about ableism in society and in medical settings:

A specific case related to this topic that you may have heard about is the tragic death of Michael Hickson, a 46-year-old Morehouse grad, husband, and father of 5. Michael became quadriplegic in 2015 after a heart attack left him with a brain injury. In 2020, he got COVID and was transferred to a hospital. Michael was a legal ward of a care agency, rather than his family, because of complications in getting him the care he needed after his heart attack. The hospital told Mrs. Hickson that they were going to stop treating Michael and move him into hospice care; the care agency that served as his medical guardian signed off on this decision. A week later, Michael died at the hospital. Perhaps the most troubling evidence from this case comes in the form of a conversation that Mrs. Hickson recorded with one of Michael’s doctors. The full, captioned recording is available on YouTube– we’ll put a link to it in the description for this video. Here’s an excerpt of that conversation: 

Doctor: “So, as of right now his quality of life — he doesn’t have much of one.”

Mrs. Hickson: “What do you mean? Because he’s paralyzed with a brain injury, he doesn’t have quality of life?” 

Doctor: “Correct”.

As Chair of the National Council on Disability, Andrés Gallegos also wrote an important article published in Health Affairs titled “Misperceptions Of People With Disabilities Lead To Low-Quality Care: How Policy Makers Can Counter The Harm And Injustice.” He discussed how healthcare “disparities are exacerbated if you are disabled and a person of color” using the case of Michael Hickson in Texas as an example. He also described four steps that health care leaders and policy makers should undertake:

• First, include disability cultural competency curricula in all medical, dental, and allied health care professional schools.

• Second, overturn states’ discriminatory medical futility laws, many of which foreclose the possibility of a patient’s wishes being followed by directing the removal of life-sustaining treatment before some patients may be transferred to another facility.

• Third, confront the problematic impact of using quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) to determine the value of health outcomes. 

• Fourth, strengthen existing federal nondiscrimination laws and engage in robust enforcement of those laws. 

It’s gratifying to see that, combined with others, his call to strengthen federal nondiscrimination laws gained some traction as demonstrated by OCR’s issuance of proposed healthcare regulations under Section 504 this September.

Andrés Gallegos’ leadership will be deeply missed but his legacy will last.