Brain-dead girl kept on ventilator for week longer
Print Edition
The family of a California girl who was declared brain dead after complications from a tonsillectomy has won an 11th-hour court order requiring doctors to keep her connected to a breathing machine for at least another week.
Under the latest court order in the case, doctors at Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland are barred from taking 13-year-old Jahi McMath off a ventilator without her family’s consent before 5pm local time on January 7, relatives and hospital officials said.
The eight-day extension gives the girl’s relatives, who refuse to accept that she is beyond recovery, more time to complete arrangements to have her transferred to an extended-care facility.
But Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evilio Grillo’s decision to extend the previous deadline set in his own restraining order of last week was intended to allow time for appellate review of the case, hospital officials said.
“This is a tragedy that has been postponed for another week,” hospital spokesman Sam Singer said outside the hospital after family members announced Monday’s ruling an hour before Grillo’s original deadline was due to lapse.
A person declared brain dead is considered legally and physiologically dead under California law, as is the case in many states, and the hospital’s own statements about Jahi have referred to her as deceased.
Grillo acted as the family filed a lawsuit in US District Court on Monday asking a federal judge to intervene to keep Jahi connected to the machine that has kept her heart and lungs going for more than two weeks.
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