Baby Joseph dies at home with parents

Baby Joseph dies at home 7 mos. after Canadian authorities agreed with the hospital to remove the vent which would bring immediate death. For back story, read here.
The family argued for a trach and allowing him to go home to die. So he lived 7 mos. longer. The parents understood that his illness was terminal. 

Blessings and peace to the family. Baby Joseph's short life was for a purpose.

Baby Joseph home with family and breathing without mechanical assistance for his final days

Baby Joseph is now home in Canada with his family  to finish out however many days he has left. After all the fighting, he is breathing without mechanical assistance. Yes, he is still going to die because he has a terminal illness. The parents always understood that. They wanted a trach so he could be cared for at home during his final days. 

The Canadian health care  system disagreed and felt it was futile care , intrusive and perhaps unnecessarily painful to the patient. An international fight ensues. Allegation are hurled and people question the status and motives of the parents. People become offended on behalf of their country.  These are some of the issues we are going to have to wrestle through as technology allows the end of life treatment to be extended.  

But what is at the center of this....how much value does the human life have. This expense and care appears futile because he is not going to be cured. I feel that clearly over the years we have stopped valuing life and turned to a utilitarian viewpoint.  People that have to care for terminally ill people often have to make these hard decisions and accept the inevitability of death. Often the problem is that the family members are not ready to accept that. Let's hope that this tiny life is honored regardless of the status of his family and his final days are peaceful.

CNN: 'Baby Joseph' receives tracheotomy at St. Louis hospital

CNN reports the long awaited tracheotomy for Baby Joseph is finally received today.

"Joseph will remain in the intensive care unit for seven to 10 days and then head to Ranken Jordan, a pediatric specialty hospital in St. Louis, before being discharged and transported to his family home in Windsor, Ontario.'

Priests for Life: Baby Joseph is now in US hospital

I am surprised that Baby Joseph is still living. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a thing of national pride over the best interest of the child. I don't understand why the hospital did not do the trach as the parents requested even though they advised against it. Some reports suggested that they tried to wean him off the vent to no avial but to remove the vent meant a death by choking within minutes. So since death was to be the outcome, why not try the trach? As I understand it everyone understood the condition to be terminal? Do the trach and release him home since the outcome was determined to be  the same anyway? 


I remember when my husband was at that point in his illness and they did a procedure on him as a last  resort. There was some discussion  from the medical professionals whether we should do the procedure. I asked if he would die without it and they said yes but he also could die doing it. There was only a slim chance of him living after a  successful procedure anyway. But how can you say no to even a slim chance of survival. I authorized t he procedure and he endured it but died later that night. But had I not tried the the only slim chance, I would have agonized over not trying it. It is a tough place to be. The procedure with Baby Joseph may kill him and sending him home with a trach may only give a few more months of life but turning off the vent will bring death. Their are no villians here...but a hard place to be for sure.

Priests for Life Announces that Baby Joseph is in a hospital in St. Louis following a night of long negotiotions and personal intervention from Father Pavone.

"Priests for Life staff toiled through the night for many nights, working in concert with dozens of people to make this possible," Father Pavone said of the nighttime rescue mission. "Now that we have won the battle against the medical bureaucracy in Canada, the real work of saving Baby Joseph can begin."
Father Pavone said Baby Joseph's transfer was accomplished through the efforts of a number of people, including his parents; family spokesman Sam Sansalone; family attorney Claudio Martini; Bobby Schindler of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, St. Petersburg, Fla.; Dr. Martin McCaffrey, a neonatologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Medical School; the Rev. Pat Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington, D.C., and attorney CeCe Heil from the American Center for Law and Justice, also in D.C. Father Frank also thanked the many other Canadian pro-life groups and individuals who have been consistent and heroic in their advocacy for Baby Joseph and for all the vulnerable."

Fox News Article: EXCLUSIVE: 'Baby Joseph' Gets Second Chance at Life in U.S.

Update on Baby Joseph...

Life Site News:Baby Joseph’s family to appeal, while U.S. hospitals have agreed to take over care

Life Site is keeping us informed on the ongoing saga of Baby Joseph. Some good news is that there is a US dr. who is willing to take on the case but needs the medical records released from Canada which appears to be an issue.You would think that Canada would welcome having this issue go to the  US but why are they digging their heels in?

 "Dr. Paul Byrne, a fifty-year veteran in the field of neonatology based in Ohio, has said that Joseph should have had a tracheostomy “a long time ago.”  He also insisted that he has never seen a need to remove a child’s ventilator, saying that “if a baby has a disease process that’s so bad that they’re going to die, then they die on the ventilator anyway.”

"Fr. Frank Pavone, the organization’s national director, revealed Monday that physicians in Michigan have agreed to oversee Joseph’s outpatient care and help wean him off the home ventilator if necessary.  “We have yet to find one facility that said it would not perform the tracheostomy on Baby Joseph,” he said.

"The hospital is now asking Ontario’s Office of the Public Guardian to intervene and allow them to take Joseph off his ventilator, after the parents have continued to refuse consent.
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, has warned that the court decision facilitates a system where doctors are authorized to force life and death decisions on patients.  He has said he believes it is far worse than the “death panels” recently debated in the U.S. as part of the federal health care law."

Detroit Hospital declines to comment but refuses to accept Baby Joseph

Life News tells the latest on Baby Joseph in that a Detroit hospital is refusing to accept Baby Joseph in a setback for the parents who want a trach performed so they can  take Joseph home for his final days. The  Canadian hospital feels that the procedure is too risky but they want to remove all life support which ensure death?? The father also argues that to remove life support will cause their son to die by choking which he finds unacceptable. How incredibly sad. This is not a question of saving his life...all understand that he is dying but it is about who decides the  who has the right to make end of life decisions...the family or the hospital.

Canada: Family fights to bring baby home to die

Secular Pro Life follows this sad story of a Canadian infant,  Joseph, declared to be in a  persistent vegetative state .  The dispute is where he will die since all agree the condition is terminal. The family is requesting a tracheotomy be performed so he can be taken home for his final days like his sister  who had a similar condition. The hospital is resisting stating they will just remove life support. The judge sided with  the hospital and the date was set for a day in Canada  that is celebrated as "Family Day."  

An update, probably due to negative publicity states that baby may be transferred  to a hospital in Michigan. Since Canada has universal health care  the term "death panels"  comes  to mind  when reading this account.

  Do doctors’ rights now trump parental rights?” asked Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition.  “And what about the dignity of the child to die in the loving arms of his parents at home?

In a further update, the transfer to a MI hospital is not certain.The family is also being aided in its fight by Alex Schadenberg, president of the Euthanisia Prevention Coalition, who said the doctors and the courts "have gone too far" in the case.

"This family wasn't asking for extraordinary medical treatment . There were willing to care for the baby at home and, to me, this is a reasonable request. To me, this is a question of who has the right to decide and I'm concerned the decisions that have been made set a precedence in place that the doctors now have more powers than they did in the past," he said. "The balance of power has shifted too far. The courts have gone beyond where they belong.
"This was not an extraordinary request (to bring the baby home.)"