Family of baby on life support at Cook Children’s wants new doctor to treat her
Attorneys representing the family of 1-year-old Tinslee Lewis have filed a motion to allow a new doctor to treat her.
Lewis, who was born with a rare heart defect called an Ebstein anomaly, has been at the center of a legal dispute for more than nine months while she has remained on life support inside Cook Children’s Medical Center. The hospital has maintained that continuing to treat Lewis is causing her unnecessary pain and suffering, and putting an emotional strain on the staff who have to attend to her. Her family has argued Lewis’ case isn’t hopeless.
Her family’s lawyers filed the motion on Tuesday in a Tarrant County district court, according to a news release from Texas Right to Life. They’re asking the court to require Cooks to grant emergency privileges to Dr. Glenn E. Green, a professor of otolaryngology at the University of Michigan who has been evaluating Lewis.
Green, going against the doctors at Cooks, believes the infant’s episodes of oxygen desaturation that have been diagnosed as “dying spells” could be the result of treatable underlying airway issues, according to the release. He would reportedly evaluate the infant for airway malacia and perform a tracheostomy. The procedure is common for those who have been on ventilators for long periods of time.
Dr. Patrick Roughneen, a Galveston physician, visited Lewis at the hospital and said in a separate declaration filed with the court that he agrees with Green’s conclusion.
“Baby T.L. should be treated no differently than any other child who has been on a ventilator this long,” he said in the court document. “Tracheotomies are routinely performed for patients after 14-days on a ventilator. Baby T.L. has been on a ventilator for over 10 months.”
He went on to say that a tracheostomy could help her improve in several ways, including decreasing the work that goes into her breathing.
A spokesperson for Cook Children’s Medical Center said in an email on Wednesday, “We no longer have authorization to make any statements on this case.”
But in November 2019, when a judge granted the first motion blocking the hospital from removing her from life support, a spokesperson said in a statement: “While we believe every child’s life is sacred, we also believe that no child should be sentenced to a life of pain.”
With the new motion filed Tuesday, the family of Lewis is making the case that Cooks has been wrong to believe the 1-year-old can’t get better, and that intrusive steps to keep her alive haven’t been worth it.
At the heart of the dispute is Texas’ 10 day rule, which says hospitals can end life-sustaining treatments for patients even if the family objects. Cooks evoked the rule in late October in the case of Lewis, until a judge granted a motion to halt the hospital from taking her off life support until at least Nov. 22.
That started months of back-and-forth legal motions and hearings. At a hearing in February, family members said Lewis has proven them wrong by continuing to fight, and even improve. Cooks wasn’t allowed to comment in court but its attorney, Amy Warr, said physicians should have a right to refuse care for a patient if that care “causes suffering without medical benefit.”
Texas Right to Life, the anti-abortion political organization, said in the release that the notion that Lewis’ case is hopeless is false and placing a countdown on patients cuts their lives short.
This story was originally published July 15, 2020 at 1:09 PM.