Not Dead Yet

From left, Hassan Rasouli is comforted by his wife, Parichehr Salasel, and daughter Mojgan Rasouli in Sunnybrook Hospital's cardiac intensive care unit in Toronto Nov. 29. Photo: Postmedia News

No one would willingly agree to cut off life support of someone they love knowing that the person while in dire medical straits is in possession of awareness.  Not only would those who love that person be averse to agreeing with doctors insisting that life support be removed as superfluous to the needs of that person in dire decline, but anyone with a shred of human decency would recoil from that final decision, as well.

There are times when it may be assured that technological advances in medical diagnostic equipment can unerringly determine that all brain activity has come to a halt.  The heart stops beating, all signals of life have departed.  Death has occurred.  And this is the time when mortality has been finalized, and for all assistive life-affirming devices be removed.

Attending doctors had originally declared that Hassan Rasouli, who post-operatively sustained a dangerous infection that left him horribly impaired, was in a persistent vegetative state.  Mr. Rasouli requires life support to extend his life, and has been in this situation since 2010 when after an operation in Toronto, he developed an infection that damaged his brain.  Doctors recommended termination of life support.

Mr. Rasouli's wife, Parichehr Salasel, just happens to be a medical doctor.  She was not convinced that her husband was in the state that the attending doctors diagnosed him with.  She felt she could detect some alertness, some consciousness, in her husband.  And she resisted the doctors' call for termination.  And she has been proven absolutely correct. 

Mr. Rasouli's condition has been upgraded; he is no longer considered to be in a 'vegetative state', rather he is in a minimally conscious state.  It is entirely possible that he will continue to improve, that his condition will become far less severe.  He may never regain full capability, but he is alive, conscious and it makes absolutely no sense to think of depriving him and his family of what he and they have.

The doctors remain determined that there is nothing to be gained by maintaining Mr. Rassouli on life support.  They are asking the Supreme Court, after lower courts were split on the issue brought to them by his family, to declare their authoritative position as medical professionals sufficient grounds to withdraw life support.

Bearing in mind their original diagnosis was incorrect.  They still want to impose their medical judgement on the man's condition.  End-of-life care is a growing issue within Canada.  The dignity of respecting human life is universal in nature.  It is simply not acceptable that when there is a hope of recovery - and there is - let alone that there is a modicum of life and consciousness present, that life support be removed.

Here is yet another issue of grave concern to families and to the public at large.  Much depends on the outcome.  Nothing less than respect for human life and the sanctity of supporting it with a view of giving hope when experience has demonstrated that patients make some amazing recoveries that doctors have denied is possible.