An ugly dispute involving a brain-dead patient’s religious beliefs and Boston’s BI-Deaconness leads to court:
Last week, doctors declared Cheng, a grandfather of seven who suffered cardiac arrest the day after Thanksgiving, brain-dead and said it was time to remove him from the ventilators and intravenous medicines keeping his organs functioning.But the family refused to let doctors take Cheng off the life-support system because his heart was still beating. They said their belief as Buddhists was that Cheng’s beating heart meant his spirit and consciousness was not ready to move on. Taking him off life support, they said, would be the same as killing him.
The Chengs hired a lawyer and obtained a restraining order against the hospital; Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center Friday took Cho Cheng’s wife, Joyce, and his son, Henry, to court to get an order allowing doctors to remove life-support systems.
(via Running a hospital)
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Mr. Chend died in the state of Massachusetts, where brain-dead is legally the same as cardiovascular dead. Upon dying, Mr. Cheng ceased to have rights and legal protections afforded only the living. The family now has legal posession of the body, which they may dispose of in any manner they see fit. If they wish to contract with some agency to provide continued organ support, then so be it. The hospital’s responsibility is now one of dealing with the Cheng family’s property rights in their interest in the body. The hospital has no further obligation to provide life support. However, if the Cheng family is willing to pay, then the hospital might be willing to warehouse the body of the deceased. Nobody wants to say it, but it all comes down to money. The insurer has dispensed with its duty to pay now that the insured life is no longer. The hospital will bag and arrange for transfer of the body, but otherwise has no obligation. The care is costing the hospital at least a $1000 a day, with charges of course being substantially more.
“This is not over,” said the family’s lawyer, Peter J. Unitt, who vowed to take the case to the Supreme Judicial Court and the Legislature if necessary. “This is something that the courts will have to deal with.”
I can now reast easy knowning that the legal system is now positioned to handle every aspect of my life from cradle to grave. No doubt they are working on extending the legal process well into the afterlife.
It’s not the legal system, it’s the families. If you don’t like the laws regarding disposition of bodies and estates, change them. You’re a voter, you elect the people who pass these laws.
The “legal system” simply enforces the laws you voted to pass.
So what laws do you want changed with regard to probate issues?
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