Nursing home says it won't take 'brain-dead' girl

[NNguyenMD]

23. Heart breaking

As an adult ICU doctor its a bit harder for me to relate to this situation. But a lot of this can be traced back to the lost of trust that occurred in the post-operative period immediately before Jahi went into cardiac arrest.

She had bleeding, whether or not it was more than what was expected is beyond anyone who wasn't there, but her mother said that no physician came back to check on her. And the only thing that the nurses were able to do was to give this poor girl a bigger bucket to bleed into.

Even if the outcome ended up the same with a brain dead child, having a physician or surgeon acknowledge something was wrong, and immediately attending to it by showing up at the bedside right away would have maintained the mother's trust in the physicians and hospital. And this poor girl's body would not have to be futility sustain by the tortures of the ICU.

I have seen many post-operarive complications. And the vast majority of the time patients are so forgiving and understanding that this is the risk of procedures, so long as you acknowledge that their pain, suffering, and morbidity is real and oftentimes permanent.

It breaks my heart to even begin to imagine what Jaho's mother is going through. And it may very well end up being the case that they will have to tear her away from her daughter's body in order to withdraw care. Its still the right tjing to do for Jahi, but it really didn't have end up this way.