It's been a week since John Peter Smith Hospital had the good sense to remove life support from Marlise Munoz after admitting that it had known for two months she was brain-dead. The way it looks now, however, that looks like a hollow gesture, as all indications are that her husband, Erick, may have to pay an astronomical bill for life support treatment that JPS tacitly admitted was futile. Keep the pressure on JPS not to make Erick pay.
Based on what Erick and his mother-in-law, Lynne Machado, told Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night, doctors were ready to turn off the machines on November 28. Not only had Marlise told her family in no uncertain terms that she didn't want to be kept alive artificially, but under Texas law she was legally dead. But apparently a Christianist CNA or nurse snitched to hospital brass, who kiboshed it under an arcane Texas law that doesn't allow life support to be removed from a pregnant woman. So Marlise was kept on life support for two months even though all indications were she was decaying on the table--Machado said that on many occasions when she came to see her daughter, she smelled of death.
At an emergency hearing Erick sought to have this travesty ended, both his lawyers and the hospital's lawyers agreed that Marlise was brain dead. A judge sided with Erick and ordered the machines turned off. The hospital knew that it had effectively torpedoed any grounds it had for appeal, and turned off the machines. But now Erick's getting bills in the mail--bills that he says he has no intention of paying. I wouldn't either. No hospital with any decency would send out such a bill. If I were Erick, the only way I'd even consider not suing for desecration of a corpse and intentional infliction of emotional distress is if the hospital eats the bill. To my non-lawyer's mind, that bill will amount to a rounding error compared to what it will have to pay Erick unless it can justify keeping life support on a dead woman.
In the week since I started this petition telling JPS not to make Erick and his family bear any financial burden for this unwanted and unnecessary treatment, over 300 people have signed. If 1,000 people sign, JPS will be hard pressed not to listen. This hospital needs to show some real decency and not make Erick pay for treatment it openly admits was futile.