DEATH PANEL: Texas Hospital to End Life Support of CONSCIOUS PATIENT Because He Has No Health Care

07 Dec, 2015 by Cassy Fiano

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Remember when the left laughed at Sarah Palin for predicting that we would soon see death panels? I wonder if they’ll be laughing at this story, where Houston Methodist Hospital is seeking to remove life support from a fully conscious patient who is able to express his wish to live.

A Texas mother claims a hospital is seeking to end the life of a her son who is a fully conscious patient. The patient’s mother says that a hospital administrative death panel is “Playing God” in deciding whether her son has the “quality of life” to continue to live.

Her son, Christopher David Dunn, 46, a fully-conscious former peace officer, is receiving life-sustaining care. Hospital officials in Houston are fighting to stop that care.

The man, his mother, and his lawyers, have filed a lawsuit in an attempt to save the man’s life. His attorney, Joe Nixon, told Breitbart Texas, “A criminal on death row in Texas has more rights than a patient in a Texas hospital.” He says a Texas statute denies a patient all due process rights and is unconstitutional.

Trey Trainor, another lawyer with the same firm who is representing Dunn, says Texas law gives a hospital the right to make life or death decisions without consulting the patient or the patient’s family.

Dunn is fully conscious but is receiving oxygen and antibiotics through two tubes down his throat. He is receiving fluids and nutrients intravenously.

Dunn’s lawyers and his mother say he is capable of making his own decisions but has difficulty speaking because of the two tubes in his throat.

Hospital officials are fighting to stop his treatment and have filed for a court to appoint a guardian to make decisions for him. Dunn filed suit but the hospital filed their own lawsuit asking that a guardian be appointed for Dunn. Dunn and his mother, Evelyn Kelly, have been making choices regarding his care.

… Dunn is a former sheriff’s deputy and has worked as a Homeland Security officer but had no health insurance when he got sick. He has been in the hospital for eight weeks since a noncancerous mass was found where his small intestine connects to the pancreas. Ms. Kelly says the mass is squeezing off the small intestine and is affecting his liver and kidneys.

The distraught mother told Breitbart Texas, “The hospital wants to turn Chris’ nutrients and extra air off and they are playing God. They want to kill my son. They say there is nothing else they can do for him, but I don’t believe that.”

“When they found out that Chris did not have insurance, they said they were done,” Chris’ mother claimed.

She says the hospital wants to turn off the breathing machine and administer a dose of morphine and another drug she did not know the name of. She was told it would take only three to five minutes for Chris to die if the drugs were administered.

Ms. Kelly and Mr. Dunn received a letter from the Meeting Chair of the Houston Methodist Bioethics Committee, J. Richard Cheney. The letter (attached below) said “the Committee has decided that life-sustaining treatment is medically inappropriate for Chris and that all treatments other than those needed to keep him comfortable should be discontinued and withheld.”

This story is absolutely horrifying — a man who served his country as a police officer being left to die because of money?! Hopefully, a good amount of media attention will shame the hospital into doing the right thing, and giving this man his right to life.