On March 4th, New Jersey Union County Superior Court Judge John F. Malone restrained Trinitas Regional Medical Hospital from taking it upon itself to discontinue life-sustaining treatment for Ruben Betancourt, who has been comatose for over a year and is dependent upon dialysis, a ventilator, and a feeding tube. Betancourt v. Trinitas Regional Medical Hospital, UNN-C-12-09.
Judge Malone granted an injunction requested by Betancourt's daughter, despite the opinion of doctors at Trinitas that he is in an irreversible persistent vegetative state and that further treatment would be futile. Judge Malone refused to adopt the position advanced by the hospital: that its doctors should not be forced to provide medical treatment that they believe is inhumane and contrary to standards of care.
Notably, the March 4 ruling makes permanent a temporary restraining order Judge Malone entered on Jan. 23 to continue providing treatment. Unlike the typical futility case (e.g. Golubchuk) which is resolved procedurally, Judge Malone adjudicated this on the merits.
Hospital counsel Philip Chronakis said that the hospital will appeal. He says the ruling “appears to require the perpetuation of a hopeless situation . . . [t]he harm is that five different physicians feel that their professional medical judgment and their medical ethics lead them to believe that continued treatment is medically inappropriate.”
4 comments:
I am pleased to see that the decision will be appealed. Conscripting physicians to provide treatment that they believe will be of no benefit to a patient is, as someone (you?) has said, to treat a hospital as a restaurant and the doctors as waiters.
You are a stupid ignorant hartless asshole lets see if you feel that way one this happens to someone you care for assshollle
this comment is exclusively for makarios the asshole
I agree with Makarios, to put forth all the time on resourses to maximize quantity versus putting those resources to work improving quality of life for others seems logically and ethically erronious.
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