We often forget how distressing the pervasive pro-death mentality, that often inhabits modern medicine, can be for pro-life health care workers. As one of our ProWomanProLife commenters wrote on my last post: “it is much easier to say what someone must do when you know that it will never be you who has to put the needle filled with poison in someone’s arm and watch the life drain out of his face. Or that it will never be you who suctions mutilated pieces of a baby out of someone’s body.”
This piece, again from The Protection of Conscience Project (quickly becoming one of my favorite “go to” sites for information) is a brilliant analysis of moral distress defined as:
” … painful feelings and/or the psychological disequilibrium that occurs when nurses are conscious of the morally appropriate action a situation requires, but cannot carry out that action because of institutional obstacles; lack of time, lack of supervisory support, exercise of medical power, institutional policy, or legal limits.”
The actual case study, however, is utterly tragic and I presume, totally illegal. It is the story of Baby Mary, a newborn starved to death in a Toronto hospital, over the span of 27 days. Prepare to be heartbroken, to say the least.
Quoting Pope Emeritus Benedict in Caritas & Veritate:
…openness to life is crucial to the development of society… a society that moves towards the denial or suppression of life ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good.
by 
This story is the most horrific thing I have ever read… and it happened here? Regardless of how one feels about withdrawing care, giving a baby a bottle is not medical care. Starving a child to death is felony child neglect. Why did not one of these nurses call Children’s aid or the police? I have no sympathy whatsoever for the nurse int he article. She is just as guilty as everyone else was. She could very easily have picked up the phone but she chose to protect her own job instead. The article does not say when this happened and I can’t find anything esle about it online, but is there any effort underway to have charges pressed against the nurses and the hospital administration? If so, how can I help?
“Her chart entry says that she took a bottle and drank 40 mls quickly today – this is the last time she is to be fed. When I went to the L2 to hold her during my break the nurse wouldn’t let me near her. She said she had “no religious hang-ups” and had no problem doing as the parents wished. The new doctor’s order written in the chart says “no stimulation” i.e. no cuddling or holding and “phenobarb for comfort”. I can’t tell you how upset I was today.”
Those crazy religious people with hang-ups. Like believing letting a baby starve to death is wrong.
Andrea, she could have called Children’s Aid or the police. In any event, my comment was a serious one; is there any legal recourse? Even if not the physician who made such an illegal order should be reported to the CPSO.
Like Katy, I too have difficulty with this nurse’s actions. Yes, I can understand the dilemma she found herself in, and in Canada, if you are fired from one hospital, it is unlikely that you can find another job. However, someone needs to have the courage to be a whistle-blower, before the baby dies, not after when little can be done.
And we wonder why Canadians are so apathetic on life issues, whereas our American neighbours are much bolder. Courage comes from doing the right thing when you are scared out of your wits; it does not lie in recounting your own moral distress after the evil deed is done.
Someone should have spoken out and loudly, and keep on speaking until someone in the public arena noticed and proclaimed it for all to hear.
Exactly. There is so much she could have done. Call Children’s Aid, police, media, anyone. I just cannot see a crime this egregious being covered up by so many. Andrea, how credible is this blog and if it is credible can it be researched and possible action taken? I know it is too late for the baby but maybe not too late for criminal and/or professional sanctions against the nursing staff and physicians involved.
Kathy, you make some very good points. In fact, this case is hardly an example of “moral distress”. It is really a case of complete criminal negligence on the part of an entire ward of doctors and nurses. I know the source personally, and have asked him to comment. Melissa is likely correct about the difficulty in attaining the true medical records for Baby Mary. Never-the-less it is something worth looking into.
Heck, I don’t think you need to be pro-life to find that case distressing. I think that anyone of good will would be appalled by that case.
I’m hearing this information second hand, but it comes from a doctor who heard this story at Saturday’s dialogue on end-of-life issues sponsored by the CMA (ie. I believe it is a reliable source).
Apparently there was a man who was very ill, ostensibly at the end of his life, here at a hospital in Alberta. The man was from BC, and there was an effort made to get a transfer back to BC so that he could be with his family. The transfer failed for some reason or another, be it budgetary issues, timing, whatever–the fellow was unable to get home. The man died of respiratory failure after being given a massive dose of narcotics–ie, he was euthanized.
Now this is troubling to begin with, given that euthanasia is illegal in Canada. But what is especially troubling is that euthanasia wasn’t this man’s first choice–he wanted to go home to be with his family, and, only when it became apparent that that was not going to happen did he ask for death.
It’s a given that people in the medical field have to constantly make difficult ethical choices. And I think it’s also a given that anyone who has been in the medical field for any length of time has probably made a choice or two that, in retrospection, was maybe not the right choice to make. But there is a huge difference between making a bad choice in good faith, and making a bad choice because because it is the easy way out or it doesn’t rock the boat.
I wonder if what is happpening here is that we are reaching the point where almost everyone in the medical field is culpable at least peripherally in some unethical medical deicision or another. And so nobody wants to speak out in the really terrible cases, because, well, “Who am I to judge?”
Even by our pathetic Canadian standards, this is a clear case of 1st degree murder. How is it possible that charges are not being pursued? The medical records alone are sufficient evidence for a conviction, whether or not this nurse is willing to testify in court.
It is actually pretty hard to get hold of medical records, Dan. The person to whom these medical records pertain is deceased, and her family is certainly not going to request them. (And even if they did request them, they wouldn’t get the full chart, someone would write something up and send that out.) Even if there were a will to prosecute this sort of case, (which there emphatically isn’t, as the medical profession is supposed to be a self-regulating profession, and crown prosecutors are a busy sort, and really unwilling to go up against a body as powerful as the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons (sic?)) how would the crown prosecutor know which records to subpoena?
I guess that maybe it is time to start questioning whether or not doctors are able to self-regulate? I’ve been looking at the records of disciplinary actions brought against doctors. It seems that doctors are capable of disciplining a doctor who has crossed ethical boundaries with regards to having an inappropriate relationship with a patient, or a doctor who is inappropriately prescribing or using narcotics. But I have yet to come across a case where a doctor has been disciplined for, say, aborting a late-term, healthy baby, or for euthanizing a patient.
Seems to me, the discussion keeps circling back to this: an entrenched anti life bias that permeates our culture and affects key societal services including the practice of medicine, which advocates abortion and euthanasia. Largely this shows that society needs a seismic shift. Like Julie says, it is starting to happen in the States but not here. Not yet. Hopefully soon. Oh, and this may sound mean, but I hope that nurse never has a good night’s sleep ever again.
Finding the records might be a bit tricky, but it is hard to see how this case wouldn’t be a slam dunk… assuming it happened exactly as stated in the article.