Oakland Children's Hospital trying to kill young girl after leaving her brain dead from tonsil surgery

Sunday, January 05, 2014 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: Oakland Children''s Hospital, brain dead girl, tonsil surgery

(NaturalNews) A tonsillectomy gone horribly wrong has left a California family in a desperate struggle to save the life of a family member who is slated to be pulled off life support against the family's will. The San Francisco Gate (SFGate) reports that officials at Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland are insisting that the plug be pulled on 13-year-old Jahi McMath, who they have already declared to be "dead" even though she is still alive and breathing.

It all began on December 9 when young Jahi was admitted to Oakland Children's Hospital to have her tonsils removed, a surgery that her family was told would help correct the girl's sleep apnea. Not long after the operation took place, Jahi began to experience horrific side effects, including streams of blood pouring from her nose and mouth. She eventually went into cardiac arrest and was declared to be brain-dead just three days later.

But rather than keep Jahi alive in accordance with her family's wishes, hospital officials insisted that she have her feeding tubes immediately removed. One doctor reportedly told the family that Jahi was "dead, dead, dead, dead," and that the hospital would not agree to "support the dead" by continuing to feed Jahi with an intravenous drip. Hospital officials also refused to allow Jahi's family time to obtain a court order, which would have ensured that the young girl remain on life support through Christmas.

"How could you not let me have my kid for Christmas?" asked Jahi's mother, Nailah, in tears. "And this is Children's Hospital, [which is] supposed to be so compassionate, so loving, and I asked him, can my daughter just live a few more days? Because she is living."

Family holds vigil around Jahi's hospital bed to protect her from faculty killers

Oakland Children's Hospital was reportedly so adamant about killing Jahi against her family's wishes that some of her closest relatives decided that it was necessary to form a barrier vigil around the girl's hospital bed. And while the family's lawyer told reporters that he could not fathom hospital administrators actually going in and trying to kill Jahi, their obvious disregard for the sanctity of Jahi's life has created quite a chilling effect.

"Could the hospital go in and try to do something? I think it would absolutely be foolish," stated Christopher Dolan, the family's attorney, to SFGate. "But in their eyes she's no longer a person. She's dead. So they're not looking at her like it was your daughter or my daughter, they're looking at her like they've got to get her out of there quickly."

Responding to the situation, the hospital's chief of pediatrics, David Durand, issued a statement basically asking Jahi's family for legal permission to kill their child. Doing so, he stated, will help "bring clarity" and "some measure of closure" to the situation, while also providing a "deeper understanding of this medical case."

But Jahi's family believes that their daughter could still recover, which makes such a request highly offensive. Jahi's family wants to see their daughter cared for with dignity and love rather than be relegated to the ranks of a subhuman vegetable, which is how hospital administrators have been treating her.

"[The family's] frustration and anger is directed at hospital administrators who are 'trying to end her life,' have declined to refer to Jahi by name, and have refused to hand over a copy of Jahi's medical records as requested by the family," explains SFGate about the case.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.sfgate.com

http://abclocal.go.com

http://www.cnn.com