According to yahoo! news, 20-month-old Canadian boy with an incurable neurological disorder passed away at his home in Ontario, Canada. Baby Joseph had a very rare disorder that ultimately kills patients by impairing their respiratory and kidney functions. The boy had been treated in both Canadian and the United States hospitals. Against his family’s wishes, the hospitals refused further treatment of the child. Instead, the hospitals recommended that he be allowed to die at home. Baby Joseph was discharged from a Canadian hospital, and later passed away with his parents and family at his side.
This article infuriated me. My feelings did not change from start to finish. If anything my anger intensified.
I think that being in the healthcare field for so long has made me jaded. In the twelve years that I have been a nursing assistant, I have seen first-hand a lot of deaths and the horrors of the dying process. There is nothing glamorous about watching a loved one gasping for air. Death is not like in the movies. There isn’t music playing in the background as a person slowly dehydrates and starves to death in horrific pain because no pain killer can relieve it. There is nothing beautiful about dying. Why in God’s or anyone else’s name would you allow your friend or relative to go through such agony? The people who would do this to a poor child anger me to no end. That’s not love. That’s control and selfishness. Love is letting that child pass on. Love is letting this poor 20- month old child be free of pain. In the article the family spokesperson stated that, “[Joseph] was not put to death at the hands of the doctors”. So does this mean this poor little boy didn’t even have the advantage of pain medicine as his kidney’s and lungs began to fail? Was it a blessing for Baby Joseph to feel like he is drowning while laying there in bed? Was it a blessing for the family to watch their son die slowly in front of them?
I am a firm believer in quality of life verses quantity. The family had extra time with their child and that was a blessing. But I really wonder about that child’s quality of life? It is not my place to judge, and God forbid that I should ever be in such a position. I only hope that I would have enough wits about me to make the right decision, one that put the welfare and comfort of the child first, for the sake of the child.
What a sad and tragic story. I agree that there is nothing glamorous about dying. I also agree that I think that he should have had some kind of medication given to him or offered as an option as he was in his last moments. I hope that I would also have the wisdom to make the right choice if I were ever in a situation like this.
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