FoxNews.com

A California hospital is unwilling to allow an outside doctor to fit a 13-year-old declared brain-dead after tonsil surgery with the breathing and feeding tubes that would allow her to be safely transferred to another facility, its lawyer said Tuesday.

Children’s Hospital Oakland will not permit the procedures to be performed on its premises because Jahi McMath is legally dead in the view of doctors who have examined her, lawyer Douglas Straus wrote in a letter to the girl’s family.

“Performing medical procedures on the body of a deceased human being is simply not something Children’s Hospital can do or ask its staff to assist in doing,” he said.

The refusal reversed the position articulated on Monday by a hospital spokesman. He said the hospital would allow a doctor retained by the family to insert a feeding tube and to replace the oral ventilator keeping Jahi’s heart beating with a tracheal tube — surgical procedures that would stabilize Jahi if she is moved to a facility willing to keep caring for her.

Christopher Dolan, the lawyer for Jahi’s mother, Nailah Winkfield, said he received the news as he tried to confirm the conditions under which the hospital would have allowed a visiting doctor and nail down the long-term care facility that might accept the girl as a patient. Dolan said he has been talking with the New Beginnings Community Center in Medford, N.Y., an outpatient client for people with traumatic brain injuries, and with an unnamed facility in Arizona.

The New York facility didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.

“They’re speaking out of both sides of their mouths. They say one thing and we go down that road, and then they say something else,” Dolan said of hospital officials. “The hospital said, ‘Bring us a doctor’ and we said, ‘Tell us the conditions’ and now, they’ve wasted a half a day of our time. We don’t have much time.”

Meanwhile, a state appeals court on Tuesday refused to order the hospital to insert the tubes, saying the issue has to go first to the lower court judge who has ordered the hospital to keep the girl on a ventilator until Jan. 7 pending the family’s appeal. The 1st District Court of Appeal said it would consider the issue at a later date, if necessary.

Straus, the hospital’s lawyer, reiterated in his letter that the hospital would release the girl’s body as soon as her family provided a detailed plan outlining how the move would be accomplished and written permission from the coroner. But he said neither has been submitted.

“No facility has stated, unconditionally or otherwise, that it is prepared to immediately accept Jahi’s body,” he wrote.

Jahi underwent a tonsillectomy and related procedures at Children’s Hospital on Dec. 9 to treat sleep apnea. Her family said she went into cardiac arrest after she started coughing up blood in the recovery room. She was declared brain dead three days later. The hospital then moved to take her off the machines that are keeping her heart and lungs going a few days before Christmas.

Doctors at Children’s Hospital and an independent pediatric neurologist from Stanford University have concluded Jahi is brain dead

Her family, citing religious beliefs and the hope that she will pull through, wants to continue life support. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo initially ruled that doctors could remove her from the ventilator at 5 p.m. Monday, but two hours before the deadline gave the family another week to find a place to move her.

Straus filed papers on Monday in both the state appeals court and in a federal court where Jahi’s mother also has sued. He is opposing the family’s request for an emergency order to keep Jahi on a ventilator indefinitely.

“The Superior Court correctly concluded, after three days of hearings and based on uncontroverted evidence, that Ms. McMath is, sadly, deceased,” the papers state. “Turning off a ventilator that assists in delivery of oxygen of a dead person causes no irreparable harm — regardless of the parental or religious beliefs of the decedent’s family.”

The federal court has said it does not plan to act on the request until the case has worked its way through the state courts.

From the Author:

The natural law is morality which reason can determine from the nature of man, without the assistance of God’s revelation. An example is the right to life. Almost all human
societies throughout history, both religious and non-religious, have recognized that it is wrong to intentionally end an innocent person’s life.   All human beings have an inborn desire to live and in this case, little Jahi cannot speak for herself.   Since there have been many cases where the Doctors were wrong and a patient lived, I believe that this also could be a case such as that.

Jahi’s Mother said that Jahi had responded several times giving her hope that her little girl could possibly recover..  I do know that despite what the doctors say, miracles still happen and the love of a Mother can sense what no one else can.

After doing some research on “Right-to-Life” cases, I found that even though a person is on Life Support, they can still pass on.  Thus, if Jahi has only been on Life Support for one month, I would say that her Mother has every right to hope she will recover.  If little Jahi could speak, there is no doubt she would say something like, “I’m not ready to die yet.” I’ve known of too many cases where G-d intervened and the patient miraculously recovered despite all that the doctors said.  And in almost all cases, the doctor confesses that he doesn’t understand it, and that he witnessed a miracle beyond explanation.  No doctor, it is not beyond explanation, it is the mighty power of a powerful creator and giver of life- our G-d!

I dare say that if anyone has the right to make the call, it must be the Mother  –  the one that assisted in giving her life to begin with.  In any case I believe that G-d understands how Mrs. McMath feels, as He knows what it feels like to lose a child.  Now, it is up to G-d and Mrs. McMath to make the final call – but the doctor?, the Hospital?, I think not.

All of this is a scary sign that socialism and control lies not just in our government but is quickly infiltrating the hospitals and the insurance companies in order to save a dime.  A life is the most precious thing G-d gives us – we cannot take it literally.  No Mother wants to give up her child if she feels that something is there to hope for.  We need more Christian hospitals that believe in miracles ad the G-d who makes them.

This “Right-to-Life” issue is getting totally out of hand and it is up to all of us to make sure that hospitals and doctors everywhere, don’t try to end what G-d could completely turn around in a second if He chose to.  I pray that this story is like many others and will have a happy ending.

To Our Readers:  Do you feel that they should pull the plug?  A horrible way to put it but, we’d like to know how our readers feel

Let us pray!