Bitter, Angry, Unjust
"I think part of [my motivation] is that there's a lot of guilt. I mean, if I had known the way things were at Sick Kids, we wouldn't have [pursued life-saving treatment]. I've got some pretty terrible memories of her suffering", said the mother of nine children, whose tenth child had been diagnosed in uterus with Trisomony 13, an often-fatal condition.
Doctors had informed her and her husband that the baby would either die pre-natally or shortly after birth. They were given the option of abortion, but refused. It wasn't, she explained, anything to do with their Catholicism, it was their respect for life.
She was 45, her husband 49, when they were expecting their tenth child. The baby was born with the often fatal genetic abnormality, Trisomony 13, which required a deep level of hospital care, treatment meant to prolong the baby's tenuous hold on life. There were two doctors involved in the care of their baby, a pediatrician and a critical care specialist.
Both of whom deny the mother's accusations that they had issued a "do not resuscitate" order, and had administered a lethal dose of painkillers to the baby, without their consent, consonant with the hospital's "policy not to provide life-saving treatment to infants with genetic disorders". The hospital denies the allegations brought against their profession reputation.
They insist that the baby's hospital and nursing care was "reasonable ... and pursuant to the direction of the independent physicians responsible for her care". The mother, Barbara Farlow, lodged her claim of medical malpractise in Small Claims Court, in Toronto, an action to recover $10,000 in damages over her baby's 2005 death.
The doctors and the hospital would like the Small Claims Court judge to refer the case to the Ontario Superior Court, where rules of evidence and procedural safeguards would permit them to defend themselves against the parents' allegations of malpractise with a full defence. The parents, if that was the decision, would choose to drop the case, unwilling to commit to lawyers' fees and a trial.
The mother of nine, grieving the death of her tenth child, insists her motivation is altruistic, wishing to expose systemic problems within the medical and health-care community in dealing with genetically impaired babies. She insists the doctors and the hospital behaved illegally, criminally, and insists on exposing them.
Perhaps the question should be why two people with a family of nine children felt they should have another, and when that tenth child turned out to have a genetic flaw that would endanger its life, their anger turned not upon happenstance and biology, but on the medical community instead.
Doctors had informed her and her husband that the baby would either die pre-natally or shortly after birth. They were given the option of abortion, but refused. It wasn't, she explained, anything to do with their Catholicism, it was their respect for life.
She was 45, her husband 49, when they were expecting their tenth child. The baby was born with the often fatal genetic abnormality, Trisomony 13, which required a deep level of hospital care, treatment meant to prolong the baby's tenuous hold on life. There were two doctors involved in the care of their baby, a pediatrician and a critical care specialist.
Both of whom deny the mother's accusations that they had issued a "do not resuscitate" order, and had administered a lethal dose of painkillers to the baby, without their consent, consonant with the hospital's "policy not to provide life-saving treatment to infants with genetic disorders". The hospital denies the allegations brought against their profession reputation.
They insist that the baby's hospital and nursing care was "reasonable ... and pursuant to the direction of the independent physicians responsible for her care". The mother, Barbara Farlow, lodged her claim of medical malpractise in Small Claims Court, in Toronto, an action to recover $10,000 in damages over her baby's 2005 death.
The doctors and the hospital would like the Small Claims Court judge to refer the case to the Ontario Superior Court, where rules of evidence and procedural safeguards would permit them to defend themselves against the parents' allegations of malpractise with a full defence. The parents, if that was the decision, would choose to drop the case, unwilling to commit to lawyers' fees and a trial.
The mother of nine, grieving the death of her tenth child, insists her motivation is altruistic, wishing to expose systemic problems within the medical and health-care community in dealing with genetically impaired babies. She insists the doctors and the hospital behaved illegally, criminally, and insists on exposing them.
Perhaps the question should be why two people with a family of nine children felt they should have another, and when that tenth child turned out to have a genetic flaw that would endanger its life, their anger turned not upon happenstance and biology, but on the medical community instead.
Labels: Health, Human Fallibility, Life's Like That
posted by Pieface | 7:18 PM
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