Wednesday, August 28, 2013

This Is Wrong

From the New York Daily News: An appeals court has sided with a hospital that wants to force a 10-year-old Amish girl to resume chemotherapy after her parents decided to stop the treatments.
The court ruled that a county judge must reconsider his decision that blocked Akron Children's Hospital's attempt to give an attorney who's also a registered nurse limited guardianship over Sarah Hershberger and the power to make medical decisions for her.
The hospital believes Sarah's leukemia is very treatable but says she will die without chemotherapy.
The judge in Medina County in northeast Ohio had ruled in July that Sarah's parents had the right to make medical decisions for her.
The appeals court ruling issued Tuesday said the judge failed to consider whether appointing a guardian would be in the girl's best interest. It also disagreed with the judge's decision that said he could only transfer guardianship if the parents were found unfit.
The family's attorney, John Oberholtzer, said Wednesday that the ruling essentially ordered the judge to disregard the rights of the parents.
Andy Hershberger, the girl's father, said the family agreed to begin two years of treatments for Sarah last spring but stopped a second round of chemotherapy in June because it was making her extremely sick.
"It put her down for two days. She was not like her normal self," he said. "We just thought we cannot do this to her."...
"Our belief is, to a certain extent, we can use modern medicine, but at some times we have to stop it and do something else," Hershberger said in a telephone interview.
They opted to consult with a wellness center and treat Sarah with natural medicines, such as herbs and vitamins, and see another doctor who is monitoring their daughter, Hershberger said.
"We see her every day. We watch her really close," her father said. "She runs, plays. She crawls up ladders. She's got a lot of energy, more than she had when she was doing chemo."...
Hershberger said they have not ruled out returning to Akron Children's Hospital if Sarah's health worsens. "We told them if it gets to the point that we cannot do anything for her, we would come back," he said.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/appeals-court-rules-amish-parents-stop-daughter-chemotherapy-article-1.1439699#ixzz2dKl9HwpX
From the article, it is clear these are good parents who love their daughter and care for her deeply and don't want her to die.
But they are also a very religious people and believe in God and that God will make the decision if she lives or dies. 
The other thing about the Amish is they have no health insurance and they pay cash.  The Amish determines if the cash is best used to treat this girl or if can better help more people. 
This is a bad decision by the appeals court and it infringes on the rights of the parents and the Amish religion.

No comments:

Post a Comment