Fort Worth family withdraws request to let new doctors treat baby on life support
Efforts to provide new physicians to treat a child who has been on life support for months have come to a halt, at least temporarily.
On Tuesday, lawyers for the family of Tinslee Lewis, a 1-year-old born with a rare heart defect called an Ebstein anomaly, withdrew a motion they filed on July 14 to obtain new treating physicians for the child.
Lewis has been the focus of a legal dispute that has gone on for more than nine months while she has remained on life support inside Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth. The hospital has maintained that continuing to treat Lewis is causing her unnecessary pain and suffering, and is putting an emotional strain on the staff who have to attend to her.
The hospital also maintains that the child’s condition cannot be improved upon and that ethical considerations dictate that the heroic measures being used to keep her alive should cease, according to court documents.
Her family has argued Lewis’ case isn’t hopeless.
The Lewis family attorneys filed a motion that asked the court to require Cook Children’s to grant emergency privileges to Dr. Glenn E. Green, a professor of otolaryngology at the University of Michigan who has been evaluating the baby.
Language in the motion to withdraw leaves open the possibility that the Lewis family attorneys may try again to get the court to allow Lewis to obtain new physicians.
Green, disputing the opinions of doctors at Cook, believes the infant’s episodes of oxygen desaturation that have been diagnosed as “dying spells” could be the result of treatable underlying airway issues. He would reportedly evaluate the infant’s airway 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.
An official with Cook Children’s said the hospital could not comment regarding the recent court developments because of restrictions that have been imposed on it by the Lewis family.
Motion is asking hospital to break the law, hospital attorneys allege
In a response filed with the court in opposition to efforts to obtain new medical care for the child, attorneys representing the hospital allege that the procedure being contemplated and the relief being sought in the courts is unnecessary, dangerous and illegal.
The Lewis family attorneys are asking a judge force Cook Children’s to grant physician privileges to perform a tracheostomy on the child. Hospital attorneys allege the suggested physician has no Texas medical license and has not sought a temporary license from the Texas Medical Board.
“The proposed relief would mandate that Dr. Green, Cook Children’s, and its staff commit a felony and violate numerous federal laws endangering Cook Children’s accreditation with the Joint Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,” hospital attorneys argue.
Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group that has been supporting the Lewis family, say in a statement that the family’s withdrawal motion is in response to Cook Children’s continued efforts to have Tinslee Lewis removed from life support.
“Trinity (Lewis) – as Tinslee’s mother – should have the final say in what procedures are done, especially since the goal of this one is facilitating her life and potential transfer,” the Texas Right to Life statement said. “Cook does not want to treat her but without this being done, she cannot be transferred; but they are stopping us from doing anything at all.”
Legal documents filed by hospital attorneys counter that physicians have always had the ability to refuse to provide care that they deem futile. Physicians are not obligated to deliver care simply because patients demand it, particularly when that care, in the physician’s judgment, has no reasonable chance of benefiting the patient.
Attorneys representing Cook Children’s point out in the hospital’s response that aspects of the Lewis case are pending appeal. Cook Children’s attorneys also argue that the relief the court is being asked to provide will do nothing to treat Lewis’ underlying terminal condition or improve her nonexistent chances of survival.
The motion by the Lewis family would require Cook Children’s to grant a new doctor privileges while he holds no Texas medical license. Cook Children’s doctors and nurses would have to assist that doctor with the surgery and provide follow-up care in order to maintain Lewis’ airway following the procedure after that doctor leaves and continue to treat and care for a patient in a new medical situation who has been intubated against the standard of care, Cook Children’s response says.
“Thus, Cook Children’s would be required to participate in – and deal with the resulting consequences of – a procedure that, in their professional medical judgment, is medically futile and will do nothing to improve T.L.’s (Tinslee Lewis’) condition,” the hospital’s response said. “There is no legal basis for requiring them to do so.”
The hospital did offer a possible alternative solution. If Lewis can be transferred to another hospital where the doctors willing to treat her had privileges, Cook Children’s might accommodate that transfer under certain circumstances, according to court documents.
“Cook Children’s reached out to C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and confirmed that ICU beds are available and that they are accepting transfer patients,” the hospital’s response said. “Cook Children’s has formally requested transfer and as of the moment of the filing of this Response, is awaiting a decision. Obviously, if Dr. Green is indeed prepared to accept T.L. (Tinslee Lewis) as a transfer patient now that his hospital has available ICU beds, that could moot both this Motion and the entire lawsuit as T.L. can be transferred to C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Dr. Green immediately.”
This story includes information from Star-Telegram archives.
