Posted: 12/30/2013 07:59:46 AM PST
Updated: 12/30/2013 08:18:09 AM PST
OAKLAND -- The family of Jahi McMath was scrambling Monday to find a facility that will take the brain-dead Oakland girl as a 5 p.m. deadline to remove her from a ventilator approaches.
A Los Angeles-area long-term care facility withdrew its offer over the weekend to accept the 13-year-old, leaving a New York hospital as the only apparent option, her mother and attorney said Sunday.
With the deadline looming, Jahi's lawyer, Christopher Dolan, could file an emergency appeal to keep the girl on the machine. She underwent a tonsillectomy and two other procedures at Childrens Hospital Oakland on Dec. 9 to treat sleep apnea and other issues. After she awoke from the operation, her family said, she started bleeding heavily from her mouth and went into cardiac arrest and was later declared brain dead.
'I just found out that the facility my daughter was supposed to be going to has backed out,' Jahi's mother, Nailah Winkfield, wrote on the family's fundraising website early Sunday. 'My family and I are still striving to find a location that will accept her in her current condition.'
That leaves an unnamed New York hospital 'as our last, last hope,' Jahi's lawyer, Christopher Dolan, said. The facility is run by an 'organization that believes in life,' Dolan told bberitaa.blogspot.com.
But in a statement issued Sunday, a spokeswoman for Children's Hospital said its doctors said no one from any other medical organization has been in contact with it to discuss a transfer of the 13-year-old.
'Our physicians have yet to receive a single call or message from the facility under consideration,' Cynthia Chiarappa wrote. 'We have been waiting since Friday -- when we were first told by the family lawyer of a potential facility that might accept the body of Jahi -- for a call from a physician to discuss with our medical staff what may be necessary to transfer the deceased.'
Dolan said the unnamed Los Angeles-area facility withdrew its offer because it didn't want media attention or to jeopardize its relationship with its doctors, who refused to treat someone who's been declared brain dead.
As Jahi's family prepared for a Sunday afternoon fundraiser at an Oakland church to help pay for a possible airlift, it remained unclear what will happen in the hours ahead.
Doctors at Children's Hospital have refused to perform a tracheotomy for breathing and insert a gastric tube for feeding, procedures that are needed in order to transfer Jahi, saying it is unethical to perform surgery on a deceased person.
'Discussion about performing medical procedures upon a dead body presents unusual and complicated questions. Until there is a definite commitment by a facility to accept Jahi's body upon specified terms, I don't think I can tackle those issues,' hospital lawyer Doug Straus wrote in a letter to Dolan that Chiarappa released Sunday afternoon.
Straus also wrote that the hospital needs to be presented with a 'lawful transportation plan' and written approval from the coroner to send her body out of state.
Several doctors, including one appointed by a Superior Court judge, have determined that Jahi is brain-dead and will not recover. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo on Tuesday ruled that Children's Hospital may remove Jahi from a ventilator at 5 p.m. Monday unless an appeal is filed.
Although Jahi was declared brain dead, her family says they believe she is still alive and have fought to keep her on a ventilator even as doctors at Children's Hospital urged them to accept her death.
Check back for updates.
Contact Natalie Neysa Alund at 510-293-2469. Follow her at Twitter.com/nataliealund.
Posted by Unknown on Monday, December 30, 2013 - Rating: 4.5
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