Canadian Family Fights to Keep Baby Boy's Breathing Tube in Place

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.

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Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/22/canadian-family-fights-babys-beathing-tube-place/

Hospital threatens to remove baby Joseph’s life support anyway - parents denied private visitations

While things were looking up for the parents of Joseph Maraachli this past weekend, the picture has now become bleaker. In the latest twist in the case the London hospital where their dying son is being cared for is seeking to remove the parents’ decision-making power after they refused to have him taken off life support. Hospital security is also denying them private visitations.

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Read more: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/baby-josephs-parents-denied-private-visitations


Facebook support page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-baby-Joseph/142316562497565

How sad!
They must be going through hell.

OMG now the courts(gov't) are ordering us (the parents) to kill our children.

How sad, I feel for this family. Hope and pray they get him home or to the other hospital.

Regardless of what you think medically, I don't understand this:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/baby-josephs-parents-denied-private-visitations

Hospital security is also denying them private visitations.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which has been offering support to the parents, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader, says they are now only allowed to see their son with a security guard present.

And this is just wrong:

But hospital officials now say that they may go ahead with removing Joseph’s life support even if the Michigan hospital or another agrees to the transfer.

I can't really comment on the rest of this story without getting a TO.

This is horrible !!! WTH is wrong with this picture ! Everything if you ask me. These parents should not have this happening to them, they are his family NOT the hospital ! Why can they not get the trachea and take him home as they want or move him to another hospital, if the hospital is saying he is going to die regardless why not let this family take him home ? What seems to be the problem, and what is our world coming to ?
I just can not comprehend this, I just can't.....

These parents have already cared for another child at home with a tracheostomy tube until her demise from the same condition. All they want is the opportunity to care for this child in the same way, and allow him to pass at home, in God's time, surrounded by family. It's all they are asking for.

Canada government can make the decision to kill a child when the parents want him to live?
I hope they can get him to Michigan to give him a fighting chance.
AND let the parents see their child as much as they wish.:maddening:
Unbelieveable!

marycarney said:

These parents have already cared for another child at home with a tracheostomy tube until her demise from the same condition. All they want is the opportunity to care for this child in the same way, and allow him to pass at home, in God's time, surrounded by family. It's all they are asking for.

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Their wishes should be granted!
imo

The thing is, from reading the interview, they are NOT looking for some experimental treatment, they KNOW their son will die from his condition, they just want to be able to take him home.

Poor little guy.

This part is just :waitasec:

Moe and Sana have asked doctors to perform a tracheotomy so that they could take Joseph home, but the doctors refused, saying the procedure was too risky.

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Having a hard time understanding the doctors' logic for that one.

I'm too angered on this to even comment right now, so I'll just say my heart goes out to the parents. What a nightmare they are having to endure

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/24/canadian-family-life-support-battle-denied-request-hospital-transfer/

Canadian Family in Life Support Battle Denied Request for Hospital Transfer

The parents of a Canadian boy ordered off life support by government health officials have been denied a request to transfer the 13-month-old to the Children’s Hospital of Michigan.

London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario, Canada, was advised Thursday by the Michigan hospital that the boy would not be transferred.

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WTH!? I am at a loss here. This poor family. Why?

This is just wrong on so many levels!!!!! If I had a passport, and money (lol) I would go protest outside the hospital for them!!!!!

I'd be right there next to you, mommy23!

let's not freak out until we get all perspectives; believe me, I was ready to BUT I took a step back and started reading more ...


But the legal fight is over, and while Moe Maraachli has accused London judge Justice Helen Rady of killing his son, his lawyer defended the ruling.

“I don’t think Judge Rady’s decision was inhumane,” Snow said.

It was clear through her tears that Rady deeply considered the parents’ plea — as did the doctor.

“I also understand how a doctor, seeing the child suffering, would see continuation of support as being inhumane,” Snow said.

Nine other medical specialists were consulted, all agreeing that continuing Joseph on life support may not be in his best interests. Their concern was affirmed by a psychiatrist, lawyer and layperson who sit on Ontario’s Consent and Capacity Board — it concluded it would be an indignity to keep Joseph alive longer through invasive means.


http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011/02/18/17334691.html

The 13-month-old child, who is in a vegetative state, has been at the London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario since last fall.


http://www.nationalpost.com/news/ca...y+court+order+life+support/4320874/story.html

there's so much more to this than the pro-life and religious organizations are screaming in their headlines

and let me just say that I have been in a very similar situation at the exact same hospital so I do understand this horrible decision and empathize with the parents

In this case, I can't imagine doing an invasive trach being any less painful than removing the breathing tube. I feel sorry for this little boy either way. But what if they do the trach and he dies on the way home? What purpose is it serving? I understand they want him to die at home. But who is paying for this? OHIP is a tricky thing. How do you choose who gets what procedure and what is fair?
Such a sad story. I understand both points of view. This is sometimes the sad side of public healthcare. If everyone's tax dollars are paying for the little one's care, I can understand when the end result is the same that Joe Public isn't going to be on board with paying for another procedure when the outcome is going to be the same.

Just a sad, sad situation.

This is such a tragic situation for all involved. The parents, family, doctors, nurses, caregivers. Heartbreaking to say the least. . The health care providers seem to be claiming that it is high risk to undertake the temporary procedure and not willing to risk the liability or expend the cost to healthcare. The family seems to want the child to die "at home". This poor little one seems to be already gone. So sad.

You just can't do this to a parent. You can't take the choice away from them

We can't let this become a world where "officials" can force these kinds of decisions upon families

I am an oncology nurse, and frequently we encounter similar situations with adult family members (rather than children). The patient's prognosis is dismal, and they are slipping away, almost trying to die, yet the family is unwilling to allow nature to take it's course.

Most families DO, but now and then, the family just can't do it. They are making the best decision they can, the only decision they believe they can live with. And THEY are the ones living with it, who will live with it long after their loved one has passed on.

Decisions like this canNOT be made unilaterally when the family does not agree. Politics, suffering, death with dignity --- pffft. This is about parents who are losing ANOTHER child.

The child is essentially gone already . The parents will continue to live, and robbing them of what they obviously feel so right about is just so cruel. I don't care how many professionals have consulted. If they recommend taking away this last thing the parents want to do for their dying child, they have lost touch with their humanity.

I have witnessed medical staff in a state of outrage against family members who insist upon continuing treatment in a doomed situation. It is exhausting and SO painful to put a dying man in an MRI, or subject them to ANYTHING other than pure comfort care. We get burnt out, a lot. We get angry and disgusted with family members who we perceive are causing their loved one unnecessary suffering.

But who's choice is it? That's the real question.

This isn't OUR family member, our child.

It's a tragedy. We need to take more pity on the living, who will have to live with what happened for the rest of their lives. I don't personally see any other humane choice.