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 HOUSTON---Houston's St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital is giving the family of Andrea Clark until Sunday to find another facility to take Clark as a patient or doctors, under direction of an ethics committee, will remove her from life support.
The surviving family of Terri Schiavo, the disabled Florida woman who died by marked dehydration and brought national attention to the issue of euthanasia, is expressing their support for Clark's family in their undertaking to protect her life.
According to her family, Clark, 54, has expressed a clear desire and strong will to live. Following open-heart surgery in January, Andrea Clark developed bleeding on the brain, but she retains responsiveness and is alert. She was born a "blue baby" and has combated medical issues her entire life but has led a full life. She was married and has a son.
"She's sick, but she's been sick before and she's proven doctors wrong lots of times," her sister said.
Clark's sister, Lanore Dixon says the hospital dictate isn't based on a medical decision but that they just say, "well, she's miserable". Dixon says that's a quality of life decision that is up to Andrea and her family.
Family members say that even though their sister can't speak, they know her wish is to live. They say that she has communicated in writing to them that she wants to live. They say that she can communicate by moving her lips and blinking her eyes.
"If their ethics committee makes a decision, it doesn't matter what the patient wants," Dixon said. "It doesn't even apparently matter what the patient's condition is, because our sister is not in a coma, she's not brain dead," Dixon said.
Last week, physicians decided to increase Andrea's pain medication due to pain from a bed sore, her sisters say. They say that when she is not medicated into unconsciousness, their sister is aware and cognizant. She has incurred no brain damage to the parts of her brain responsible for thought and reason or speech.
She has only suffered loss of some motor control.
Andrea's sisters say that until the physicians anesthetized her into unconsciousness, Andrea was fully able to make her own medical decisions and had decided that she wanted life saving treatment until she dies naturally", Melanie Childers, another sister said. "We have learned that this is part of the process, when hospitals decided to declare the "medical futility" of continuing treatment for a patient.
The Schindler family said they were appalled to learn of the decision St. Luke's Hospital has made to remove necessary medical treatment from Ms. Clark, over the objections of her next-of-kin and on the recommendation of an ethics committee that is not active in her care or familiar with her values.
"Our Foundation is very troubled at the power that hospital ethics committees have to undermine a patient's well-being and personal right to appropriate care." said Bobby Schindler.
"The story of Andrea Clark demonstrates the dangers of these unelected, self-appointed, and anonymous committees that are rushing to remove the care from patients in private, without any sort of oversight.
"This happens in spite of the fact that the treatment patients like Andrea Clark are receiving are working", Schindler said.
Mary and Robert Schindler as well as Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo and Bobby Schindler now work full time for The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, Center for Health Care Ethics in St. Petersburg, Florida, an organization dedicated to ensuring the rights of disabled, elderly and vulnerable citizens against care rationing, euthanasia and medical killing. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/042406HoustonLife.html
Protests have been held at the hospital and are ongoing. St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital is located at 6720 Bertner Ave., Houston, TX 77030, phone 832-355-1000; email address generalinformation@sleh.com
4-25-06
© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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