Jahi McMath: Terri Schiavo group secretly leading transfer efforts

[alp227]

Source: Contra Costa Times

The last hope for Jahi McMath to be kept on a ventilator may come from a former Long Island hairdresser who runs a brain-injury treatment center dedicated to Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman whose case sparked a fierce nationwide end-of-life debate.

On Tuesday, the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network said publicly for the first time that it has been helping Jahi's family for weeks to find a place to transfer the 13-year-old Oakland girl declared brain-dead by doctors. The network has worked "in relative silence for the sake of the sensitivity of her case."

"Jahi McMath has been labeled a 'deceased' person. Yet she retains all the functional attributes of a living person, despite her brain injury," the organization said. "This includes a beating heart, circulation and respiration, the ability to metabolize nutrition and more. Jahi is a living human being."

New Beginnings founder and owner Allyson Scerri shared a statement on her Facebook page Tuesday explaining how her Medford, N.Y.-based facility "is about preserving life and treating brain-injured patients with care and dignity."

Read more: http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_24825161/jahi-mcmath-terri-schiavo-group-secretly-leading-transfer

---

Surprise, surprise!

[AtheistCrusader]

1. 'Personhood' is more than just a pulse.

It's sad, but that girl is dead. Unplug her, and she will no longer have the appearance of life.

[SoapBox]

2. If one is on a ventilator and it is removed...

Don't most "die" (as in heart stops, circulation stops, etc.)?

I'm no medical expert and not expert on this case but I don't think she would "live" if the artificial equipment were removed. I take issue with this group's statement that she is a "living" human being.

[davidpdx]

4. My dad was on life support after his last stroke

(not sure how many total he had between the time he was 42 and when he died at 55). We (my siblings and I) had to make a decision whether to remove him from life support. Once the doctor said their was no chance of recovery, it took me about a day to decide that removing him was the right thing to do. My siblings ended up agreeing and he was moved to hospice without the life support and lasted only a few days.

That is what the family should do, move her to hospice and spend the last few hours or days with her rather than in court fights.

[SoapBox]

6. Thank you for sharing

about your dad.

Mine passed away in PDX in 1998.

[XemaSab]

19. It's not even worth going to hospice

Without the machine, her heart would stop beating in a few minutes and she would feel nothing.

[csziggy]

21. Sometimes hospice is not a physical location

After a catastrophic event in August my Dad had been moved to a palliative care unit in the hospital and then we put him in hospice care. He was not moved from the hospital or even the room - the actual care was just put under the umbrella of the hospice group and our family was given additional services to help us deal with the situation.

Hospice had slightly different approaches to his palliative care - more emphasis on relieving his pain and keeping him calm - but otherwise the treatment was the same as the palliative care of that hospital. Dad lasted less than a week once the decision was made to move him into palliative care and then hospice. We were all very comfortable with the care he got and the choice of hospice.

If we had selected a different hospice service, he would have been moved to their facility. We made the choice for a service that did not require this. Simply moving him from one room to another increased his pain, transporting him across town would have been distressing to him and to us.

I wonder if Jahi's family would accept hospice care that the hospice group could better help them deal with their loss. Instead, they are now being manipulated (in my opinion) by groups who care not at all about Jahi and only about their political agenda.

[davidpdx]

42. Probably so

A hospital is a terrible place to have to say goodbye though

[XemaSab]

45. But so many do

[cosmicone]

11. She is not living now

The machines are keeping the tissues oxygenated but there is no life in her.

[Pmc1962]

15. She is already dead

If you are brain dead, your brainstem doesn't function and you will not breathe when you are taken off the ventilator.

This is different from a brain injury when your brainstem may be intact and you may very well breathe, if ineffectively, when the machine isn't breathing for you.

The poor girl is already dead.

[davidpdx]

3. Now here's the first thing that jumped out at me

former Long Island hairdresser who runs a brain-injury treatment center

I'm I just nuts or is being a hairdresser a prerequisite for knowing about brain-injuries? (no offense to hairdressers)

I guess it isn't surprising at all. They are chopping at the bit for another case. Why not get her to Texas since they have stricter laws? It is a hell of a lot closer. I'm sure Harry Perry being the big badass governor he thinks he is would make sure she stays on a ventilator for life.

[cosmicone]

10. Hey hey

The brain is only about 5/8" deeper than the hair roots. A couple of courses and voilá - a hairdresser can become a brain specialist.

[RoccoR5955]

13. Aren't those things that hairdressers put over client's heads

some sort of brain scanning, and brain washing thing, as well as hair dryer?
They have to be, hair dryers don't have to be that big, only high tech brain washing machines do (well at least now)

[niyad]

17. apparently she got all her education when her father suffered a tbi after a motorcycle accident.

[magical thyme]

30. I checked out their website yesterday. No mention of actual medical staff, other than

a generic statement about providing the best, most leading edge medical care and rehabilitation.

Taking Jahi will be a big fund-raiser for them, at the cost of false hopes for her family.

I doubt they will attract the best of any neurologists or other rehab specialists out there. There is shortage of doctors, not a surfeit. Why would anybody deliberately destroy their reputation in the legit world by attaching themselves to what is increasingly looking like a freak show.

[ninjanurse]

32. I saw that too

There's nothing that says they have the staff or equipment they would need to keep a ventilator going. I'd like to think they are sincere, but just as likely they are trying to raise their profile knowing that they will never actually have to answer to Jahi's family.

[rocktivity]

5. If McMath can't be transferred without the feeding and breathing tubes

and her hospital is refusing to insert them (or have anyone from outside come in and insert them) because she's dead, then her family has already won the battle but lost the war.


rocktivity

[blkmusclmachine]

7. Terri Schiavo, Part 2

The GOP has waited 8 long years to drag the Country back into their mess. Stay out of that family's business, you freakish busy-bodies (i.e., GOP).

Don't you all have Health Care to deny someone, somewhere?!?!

All IMHO

[truthisfreedom]

8. The only two forms of "life" repugs respect... Unborn and

Undead. Everyone else is chattel.

[cosmicone]

9. The facility is for scamming the stupid

sort of like shooting fish in a barrel.

[ninjanurse]

12. Where Will New Beginnings Get a Ventilator?

I went to their site and they seem to be an outpatient community center with a house that is being renovated for a group home. They have had a series of fund raisers but how many people they have served, what staff they have and qualifications are unclear.
I've worked in a number of nursing homes and only one accepted a patient on a ventilator. Not all nurses have the training and experience to manage these patients and all their equipment.
New Beginnings says they will provide around the clock nursing and respiratory therapy. I wonder if they think they can do this with volunteers, because paid staff even minimally will cost hundreds of dollars a day.
They are trying to raise money to complete the renovation of their house and buy rehab equipment. How will they get a ventilator?
They'll also need a covering doctor to take responsibility for the overall plan. And what will happen when something goes wrong and they have to call 911?
Just from a nursing point of view this seems unworkable, and the kindest interpretation is that they are counting on faith and financial and volunteer support. The other possibility is that they know this won't happen but they've raised their profile.
It's awful to watch a mother's grief being prolonged by false hope, and it may be that the people who claim to be helping her are only interested in their own agenda.

[RoccoR5955]

14. They'll get it from "god."

Isn't that where they get all of their crap?

[Rozlee]

16. People, this could be YOU, if you don't sign Advance Directives and a Living Will.

Granted, this child wasn't of age and her family have control of her body against any wishes she may have had, but everyone should be prepared for this contingency. Terry Schiavo never made advance directives and look how that turned out. As a nurse, I saw family members who kept their parents or spouses alive just to keep collecting their benefits. I remember one patient who had been on a ventilator for ten years while his wife had moved on with another man and rarely bothered to visit him. But, she wanted to keep collecting his benefits checks and didn't want him dead. Whenever he had a crisis like pneumonia or some other complication, she'd swoop on us like a fury and demand that everything be done to save him. Sometimes, people don't want to let go because of love. Sometimes, because of avarice. Whatever the reason, the decision shouldn't be theirs.

[heaven05]

18. well. I was looking for that name, schiavo

she is the one I was trying to remember, even googling I couldn't get the question right. But yeah, people yesterday were saying let this young woman 'die'. She's 'dead'. Yet being a 'deceased person' how could respiration, a heartbeat, circulation and the ability to metabolize nutrition classify her as dead. I wouldn't want all this for myself if I was in her state, but her parents have a right to hope for a miracle. Period. May this young woman receive that miracle.

[paleotn]

22. For all practical purposes....

...once the brain is dead, you are dead. What made you, you no longer exists. You're either gone off to nirvana or cease to exist except in you loved one's memories, depending on what flavor you prefer. What's left is just tissue, nothing more. Her organs are being kept alive only by advanced medical technology.

As for the "miracle", just like the $10M bounty on Big Foot I saw yesterday, a $10M bet on her every getting out of that bed on her own is about as safe. Probably safer. It just flat ain't gonna happen, no way, no how.

[creeksneakers2]

24. You can't trust the Shaivo crowd about anything

They lied about all kinds of things in the Schaivo case. Who else says the current patient has respiration, a heartbeat, circulation and the ability to metabolize nutrition on her own?

[rocktivity]

28. Post number 23

explains it all for you:

...Her respiration, heartbeat, circulation and metabolis(m) only continue courtesy of the ventilator. When they have removed the ventilator all "functional attributes" cease because her brain stem is nonfunctional. And the circulation the ventilator provides is not able to reach any of her brain.

rocktivity

[MsPithy]

33. She IS already dead. The ventilator is a machine that is breathing for her.

She is not breathing on her own. Her autonomic nervous system is keeping her heart beating. When the ventilator is turned off, the oxygenated blood that is keeping her body functions working will stop. She will begin to decompose. Short of jesus appearing in her room and turning her brain back on and repairing the damage done to her brain when it was without oxygen, there is no miracle that can help her. She is dead.

When the electrical impulses in the brain stop, which can be measured very easily, that is the universally accepted definition of being dead.

As we said yesterday, Terri Shaivo was in a persistent vegetative state. She did breath on her own. She was not brain dead.

Jahi's poor family is being treated incredibly cruelly. It is perfectly understandable that they are wishing with all their hearts for their girl to be miraculously healed. It is despicable that such wicked people are taking advantage of the family's pain. Anyone who is telling them that she should be kept on the ventilator because there might be a miracle, should roast in hell.

[magical thyme]

23. Yet she retains all the functional attributes of a living person. Seriously?

Yet she retains all the functional attributes of a living person, despite her brain injury," the organization said. "This includes a beating heart, circulation and respiration, the ability to metabolize nutrition and more. Jahi is a living human being."

Her respiration, heartbeat, circulation and metabolism only continue courtesy of the ventilator. When they have removed the ventilator all "functional attributes" cease because her brain stem is nonfunctional. And the circulation the ventilator provides is not able to reach any of her brain.

Apparently the Schiavo group is oblivious to the fact that the autopsy shows that Schiavo's brain was liquid. The remains of Jahi's brain is likely well into necrosis by now.

[rocktivity]

27. DING DING DING! Magical Thyme, you're our grand prize winner!

Her respiration, heartbeat, circulation and metabolism only continue courtesy of the ventilator...Apparently the Schiavo group is oblivious to the fact that the autopsy shows that Schiavo's brain was liquid...

I wish I had your knack for putting it so...tactfully.


rocktivity

[PSPS]

25. "Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman whose case sparked a fierce nationwide end-of-life debate"

The last hope for Jahi McMath to be kept on a ventilator may come from a former Long Island hairdresser who runs a brain-injury treatment center dedicated to Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman whose case sparked a fierce nationwide end-of-life debate.

I always stop reading as soon as they insert a fiction like this. The "debate" they are referring to, of course, was nothing more than a creation of the very same media writing this story solely to manufacture a controversy for them to "cover."

[egold2604]

26. If they are so intent on keeping her alive with no brain function, let them pay for all her care

[lancer78]

29. Why are these people

interfering with GOD'S WILL?

[Butterbean]

31. I am of two minds on this.

Logically, I absolutely understand the need to have pulled the plug on this poor child a long time ago. As a nurse I most certainly get what is going on and have no doubts that she is truly gone, and that she is just a body being maintained by machines, sucking up resources and staffing that most certainly are desperately needed elsewhere.

HOWEVER, as a mother, I'm not sure how I logical I would be or how much common sense I would have if it was MY child laying in that bed. I understand that everybody grieves differently, and that is exactly what these parents are doing, they are grieving. It doesn't make their actions right, but in my mind at least, it does explain them. I really can't say how I would react if it was my child and I had to make such a horrible decision. I would rather die myself than have to make such a decision. My heart aches for the parents.

The T.S. group getting involved is just sleazy and gross and I wish they would have kept quiet. If their intentions were really genuine like they say they are, they would have kept quiet and not announced to everybody what they were doing. Gross.

[Ineeda]

34. Butterbean...

when it comes right down to it, the most heartbreaking but kindest thing is to let your loved one go. I take pride in the fact that I could put aside my fear and crushing grief and love my husband enough to release him.

[Bryce Butler]

35. So I went to...

the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network website. Once the page loaded, Glenn Beck was staring at me. That tells me all I need to know about this group.

[nomorenomore08]

37. "Glenn Beck was staring at me." OMG I'm sorry! You must be so traumatized!

[Bryce Butler]

38. I did

get traumatized. I may need to seek professional help.

[Tanuki]

39. OMG, it just gets worse from there! Another click and you'll see Sarah Palin!

Beck is going to be the featured guest at their 2014 fundraising gala, just as Palin was in 2013! Honestly, what a bunch grifters! It would almost be comical, if the circumstances weren't so tragic and the exploitation of the devastated family so cynical and cruel.
http://lifeandhopeaward.com/
(Beck's big head is the first thing you'll see, but scroll down a bit and you'll see Palin).

[Bryce Butler]

40. I didn't stick around to see Palin.

Seeing Beck traumatized me enough.

[LiberalElite]

41. Last year

they invited Sarah Palin. Tells me all I need to know. Right wing scum bag tea partiers using this girl to further their ideology.

[nomorenomore08]

36. So why do none of these Christian fanatics seem to give a shit about any disabled person who *isn't*

brain-dead? Seems like their resources would be better spent on less hopeless cases.

[LiberalElite]

43. Ah but they wouldn't get

publicity from that, would they?

[MsPithy]

44. These "Life & Hope Network" motherfuckers

are preventing Jahi from moving on to whichever "Better Place," the family believes in. And they are robbing the family (I'll assume they are christians) of being comforted by the idea that their little girl is safe and happy with jesus.

bastards.