Don’t paint Cook Children’s as a villain in tragic Tinslee Lewis life support case
Reasonable people can disagree over what should happen next in the case of Tinslee Lewis, the critically ill infant at the center of a legal battle between her family and Cook Children’s Medical Center.
Tinslee has lived her entire 11 months at the hospital, and doctors see no evidence that she can survive her significant heart and lung ailments without continued medical intervention. As the hospital detailed last week, Tinslee is living under chemically induced paralysis. She regularly requires life-saving measures that medical experts believe cause significant pain.
Some ardent pro-life groups have taken up her family’s effort to sustain treatment, but in doing so, a few activists have painted Cook Children’s as a villain. That’s inappropriate.
Cook Children’s is a vital institution that does much good for Tarrant County. Doctors and leaders there are dedicated to healing and improving children’s lives, often on a charity basis. We’re confident that no one there relishes the tragedy of Tinslee’s case.
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Her mother and other relatives understandably disagree with the hospital’s judgment. They hold out hope for recovery and have searched for another institution willing to care for the infant. This week, an appeals court judge sided with the hospital under the state’s Advance Care Directives Act, refusing to issue an injunction that would prevent Cook Children’s from removing life support.
The family should be able to exercise every legal avenue available, and late Friday, a state appeals court in effect reversed the earlier decision, ensuring that care must continue while appeals are heard.
The directives law is designed to help resolve disputes like this, which are thankfully rare. Medical professionals often defer to family members, but when they can’t in good conscience continue treatment that they believe to be futile, the law provides a clear avenue for dispute resolution.
It’s not perfect. Enacted 20 years ago, it’s a careful bunch of compromises designed to provide a path to resolve the most difficult medical disputes.
We’ve argued before that the 10-day period the law establishes for family members to seek alternative care should be longer. Some suggest that the law allows hospitals to stack committees that review such cases with their own doctors and administrators. If the law is revisited, it’s worth looking at alternative structures.
But in this case, it’s telling that so far, no other medical institution has been willing to accept a transfer of Tinslee to its care.
Some have suggested that Cook Children’s may be suggesting to other hospitals that Tinslee’s case is hopeless. We trust that other responsible institutions are capable of reviewing the facts and deciding for themselves what’s in their best interest as well as Tinslee’s.
There’s no likely outcome to this case that isn’t tragic. As the courts continue to weigh the case, Cook Children’s is providing care that, in its best medical and ethical judgment, is futile.