Jahi McMath, Girl Left Brain Dead From Routine Tonsillectomy, To Be Kept On Life Support (BLOG)

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9wjdAmwSXClpkG7DDS6UPXDky0buAVu6lCT1Jiji6IMaOyn-RAQd88nYM2OIkakx-aT4VKWA2i86ssqdHtEfLYK-ffNei9Bkbj-ioZGob-HYJ9C_-rpB86oUy2mwmj9goLbtvjRHWOdk/s1600/n-JAHI-MCMATH-large570.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9wjdAmwSXClpkG7DDS6UPXDky0buAVu6lCT1Jiji6IMaOyn-RAQd88nYM2OIkakx-aT4VKWA2i86ssqdHtEfLYK-ffNei9Bkbj-ioZGob-HYJ9C_-rpB86oUy2mwmj9goLbtvjRHWOdk/s320/n-JAHI-MCMATH-large570.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A 13-year-old California girl declared brain dead after complications from a tonsillectomy should be kept on life support for the time being, a judge has ruled.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The family of Jahi McMath says doctors at Children's Hospital Oakland wanted to disconnect life support after Jahi was declared brain dead on Dec. 12.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Friday's ruling by Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo came as both sides in the case agreed to get together and chose a neurologist to further examine Jahi and determine her condition. The judge scheduled a hearing Monday to appoint a physician.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The girl's family sought the court order to keep Jahi on a ventilator. They left the courtroom without commenting.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">After her daughter underwent a supposedly routine tonsillectomy and was moved to a recovery room, Nailah Winkfield began to fear something was going horribly wrong.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Jahi was sitting up in bed, her hospital gown bloody, and holding a pink cup full of blood.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">"Is this normal?" Winkfield repeatedly asked nurses.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">With her family and hospital staff trying to help and comfort her, Jahi kept bleeding profusely for the next few hours then went into cardiac arrest, her mother said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Despite the family's description of the surgery as routine, the hospital said in a memorandum presented to the court Friday that the procedure was a "complicated" one.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">"Ms. McMath is dead and cannot be brought back to life," the hospital said in the memo, adding: "Children's is under no legal obligation to provide medical or other intervention for a deceased person."</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">In an interview at Children's Hospital Oakland on Thursday night, Winkfield described the nightmarish turn of events after her daughter underwent tonsil removal surgery to help with her sleep apnea.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">She said that even before the surgery, her daughter had expressed fears that she wouldn't wake up after the operation. To everyone's relief, she appeared alert, was talking and even ate a Popsicle afterward.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">But about a half-hour later, shortly after the girl was taken to the intensive care unit, she began bleeding from her mouth and nose despite efforts by hospital staff and her family.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">While the bleeding continued, Jahi wrote her mother notes. In one, the girl asked to have her nose wiped because she felt it running. Her mother said she didn't want to scare her daughter by saying it was blood.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Family members said there were containers of Jahi's blood in the room, and hospital staff members were providing transfusions to counteract the blood loss.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">"I don't know what a tonsillectomy is supposed to look like after you have it, but that blood was un-normal for anything," Winkfield said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The family said hospital officials told them in a meeting Thursday that they want to take the girl off life support quickly.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">"I just looked at the doctor to his face and I told him you better not touch her," Winkfield recalled.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Despite the family's description of the surgery as routine, the hospital said in a memorandum presented to the court Friday that the procedure was a "complicated" one.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">"Ms. McMath is dead and cannot be brought back to life," the hospital said in the memo, adding: "Children's is under no legal obligation to provide medical or other intervention for a deceased person."</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The family filed a request Friday for a temporary restraining order prohibiting the hospital from taking Jahi off life support or any of her other current treatment.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">At the hearing later, the hospital's attorney, Doug Straus, said two doctors unaffiliated with the hospital examined Jahi and concluded that she was brain dead. But he said, "We're happy to cooperate with the judge's suggestion that an independent expert be provided to confirm yet again that brain death is the outcome that has occurred here."</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The family's attorney, Christopher Dolan, said the family wanted independent tests of their own because they do not believe the hospital's physicians are sufficiently independent.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">"There is mistrust and there is a conflict of interest," he said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Judge Grillo said he would grant the restraining order in hopes that a resolution could be reached by Christmas to give the family peace of mind.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Hospitals do a barrage of sophisticated tests to determine brain death, said Dr. Cristobal Barrios, an associate professor and a trauma and critical care surgeon at the University of California, Irvine. He is not involved in Jahi's care and spoke about general hospital protocols.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The tests include touching a patient's cornea to elicit a blink, moving a breathing tube to stimulate a gag reflex, tickling the back of the throat to bring on a cough, and applying pressure or pain.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">If the patient fails to respond to all of those tests, doctors remove the breathing tube for a few minutes. If there is any brain activity, the patient should begin breathing within a few minutes, he said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">In some cases, doctors will also draw a blood sample, add radioactive tags and re-inject it into the body to track where it flows. If the blood doesn't flow to the brain, Barrios said, there is no brain activity.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Generally, two teams of specialists must run the tests and determine independently that the patient is brain dead, he said. At UC Irvine, those evaluations must take place 12 hours apart if the patient is a child.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Barrios said it's not unusual for family members to resist a diagnosis of brain death.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">While the hospital is not obligated to keep life support going after that diagnosis, Barrios has left brain dead patients hooked up for up to five days while family members move toward acceptance, he said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">"I understand why sometimes for families it's devastating and confusing," he said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">___</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Associated Press writer Gillian Flaccus in Santa Ana contributed to this report.</div></div>

Jahi McMath, Girl Left Brain Dead From Routine Tonsillectomy, To Be Kept On Life Support (BLOG)

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A 13-year-old California girl declared brain dead after complications from a tonsillectomy should be kept on life sup...

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