Why no special session of Congress for this woman?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Kevin G. Barkes" <kgb () kgb com>
Date: December 22, 2005 4:48:00 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Why no special session of Congress for this woman?
Reply-To: kgbarkes () gmail com

http://tinyurl.com/dt2cl

Oh, yeah. They were busy cutting Medicare and opening the Alaskan  
wilderness
preserve for oil drilling.




A family has gathered to mourn a woman gone too soon.

Tirhas Habtegiris was an East African immigrant and only 27 when she  
died
Monday afternoon.

She'd been on a respirator at Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano  
for 25
days.

"They handed me this letter on December 1st. and they said, we're  
going to
give you 10 days so on the 11th day, we're going to pull it out,"  
said her
brother Daniel Salvi.

Salvi was stunned to get this hand-delivered notice invoking a  
complicated
and rarely used Texas law where a doctor is "not obligated to continue"
medical treatment "medically inappropriate" when care is not beneficial.

Even though her body was being ravaged by cancer, this family says  
Tirhas
still responded and was conscious. She was waiting one person.

"She wanted to get her mom over here or to get to her mom so she  
could die
in her mom's arms," says her cousin Meri Tesfay.

Ten days was not enough time, they say, to get a mother from Africa to
America.

The family and hospital desperately tried to get Tirhas moved to a  
nursing
home but they say no one would take her.

"A fund issue is what I understand. Because she is not insured and  
that was
the major reason the way I understood it," Salvi said.

A statement from Baylor Plano disputes that and says the hospital did  
its
best to comply with the family's wishes in every way.

Still, on the 11th day, Tirhas Habtegiris was taken off the  
respirator and
died.

Her family feels caught in America's health insurance crisis.

"And it's kind of a shock to me too to experience this in this  
country. It's
the richest country in the world. Very sad," Salvi said.

Experts say there are very few charity beds for ventilator dependent
patients in this state. President George W. Bush has said he wants to  
expand
healthcare for legal immigrants in this country.

(Bush was governor of Texas and signed the law which permits  
hospitals to
pull the plug in cases like this.)

Regards,

KGB

-----
Kevin G. Barkes
Email: kgb () kgb com | Web: www.kgb.com
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