As a follow-up to this very sad story, from the Windsor Star:
The Windsor family of terminally ill baby Joseph Maraachli suffered another setback Wednesday when the Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit refused to accept the infant as a patient.
Joseph’s aunt, Faith Nader, said the Detroit hospital will not take the 13-month-old in for an assessment, as the family had hoped.
The boy’s parents, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader, have been fighting doctors at the London Health Sciences Centre, where Joseph has been since last fall, refusing to let them remove the child’s breathing tube.
Although Joseph suffers from a severe and terminal neurological disorder, his parents don’t want him to die in hospital.
Instead, they’ve been asking doctors to perform a tracheotomy, which would allow them to take Joseph home.
It’s their wish that he would die there, surrounded by family.
Joseph’s parents reached out to the Children’s Hospital of Michigan to see whether specialists there would examine the baby and provide a second opinion. The parents defied a court order this week to comply with the London doctors’ plan to remove Joseph’s breathing tube.
The couple’s lawyer, Mark Handelman, had been negotiating Joseph’s possible transfer to Detroit and who would pay for the child’s care in the United States.
The London Health Sciences Centre had sent the child’s medical records to Michigan.
Handelman could not be reached for comment Wednesday night, but he told The Star this week the family wanted “a second, completely independent medical opinion.”
Late Wednesday, LHSC confirmed Joseph will not be transferred to Detroit, but declined to elaborate, citing privacy rules.
A spokeswoman for the Children’s Hospital of Michigan wouldn’t comment on Joseph’s case, calling it a private matter.
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition who is helping Joseph’s family navigate the legal system, said the news from Detroit was “a big disappointment.”
“But it’s not over yet,” he said, noting that the Children’s Hospital of Michigan was not the only facility the family had in mind. “Everything is moving along and we’re hoping for the best.”
However, time may be running out. LHSC has contacted the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee, which can make health care decisions on behalf of those deemed incapable of doing so themselves.
Since Joseph’s parents have not given consent to remove the baby’s tube and no other relatives are willing to do so, the next legal step is to ask for the public guardian’s consent. That can take several days.
“We don’t know how much time we have,” Schadenberg said.
Meanwhile, money is being raised to help cover the family’s legal bills. A trust account has been set up at TD Canada Trust bank, where people can deposit donations
Read more:
Detroit hospital refuses to admit dying Windsor baby