Your Childs Life or Death:
Who Controles “Medical”
Decisions ?
Rep. Kidd's “Simons Law”seeks to
make it you.
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Links:
Despite failure in Mo., Kansas passes
first “simons law”.(can not get this link
to work)
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Imagine for a moment that your child is
seriously ill and in a Missouri hospital.
If medical staff decides to stop life
sustaining treatment or food do you think you should be informed? As
the parent, should your consent be required?
You would answer yes, and assume the
parents informed consent is already required. You would be wrong.
When it comes to a disorder that is determined to be “lethal” or
“incompatable with life”,
life sustaining care can be and often
is discontinued without the parents knowledge or appoval.
A death setence for your child you
never even knew about.
One such case here in Missouri has
sparked a push for “Simons Law”. In 2014, Simon Crosier was born
with a genetic disease and was a patient at a St. Louis Hospital. Due
to the hospitals “futility policy” A DNR (do not ressesitate)
order was placed in his records and “comfort feeding” was
ordered. Comfort feeding is not designed to sustain life or recovery.
The parents where never informed of these decisions nor did they
consent to them.
His mother, Sheryl Crosier, testified
his monitors where turned off and she was not allowed to feed him
even her own breast milk. She watched her child die and no one at the
hospital tried to save him.
In fact, no one was allowed to.
When representavie Bill Kidd of
Missouri discovered what had taken place, and had personally visited
with the mother, he began to champion HB 1361 “Simons Law” here
in Missoui.He wanted to make sure it never happened again.
Representative Kidd commented, “ I thought the bill would easily
pass through committie and be voted into law, but when we got to the
hearing the room it was filled with lobyists from hospitals and
medical groups”. Simons law never even got passed out of
committie, much less voted on by the house (see who opposed and
committiee vote below).
Since that time a similar bill has been
passed and signed into law in Kansas, but Missouri appears unable to
do the same. Kansas
Gov. Signs nations first "Simons Law" 2017
Representative Kidd fights on and will
introduce the bill again in the next legisative session.(text here)
COMMITTEE ACTION: Voted "Do Pass
with HCS" by the Standing Committee on Children and Families by
a vote of 9 to 0. Testifying against the bill were Stuart Sweet;
Joan Rosenbaum, MD, St. Louis Children's Hospital; Jonathan Mullin,
St. Louis Children's Hospital; Paul And Kim Kosednar; Sarah Younger
MD; Naomi Lauriello, American Academy of Pediatrics Missouri Chapter;
Jane Moone, Missouri Hospice & Palliative Care; Laura
Miller-Smith; and SSM Health
