The article, “Parents fight Canadian hospital for child’s survival” by Conley (2011) seeks to explain a heated debate between doctors and parents to the baby with degenerative disease. According to the article, physicians in a Canadian hospital advised Maraachli family that their baby was in a persistent vegetative state and no treatment would cure his condition. Due to Baby Joseph’s state, doctors presented the family with a consent form that would allow them to take off the life-sustaining therapy. The family refused to sign the waiver because they wanted health care professionals to keep their baby alive (Conley, 2011). The sensitive balance that Baby Joseph’s parents are trying to maintain is between doing their best to keep their child alive and using money and other medical resources in a losing battle. Since the doctors and the family failed to agree, the Consent and Capacity Board in Ontario ruled that the life support machine should be removed.

The family’s perspective was that their child was dying and they wanted to take him home after the doctors’ operation. According to the family’s spokesman, Alex Schadenberg, Baby Joseph’s parents were not requesting for extraordinary intervention from the doctors, but they were asking them to perform a tracheotomy so that they could take the child home and look after him in his final days. Moreover, the family questioned why the Canadian health care system allowed other babies in similar conditions to go home with a breathing tube and a ventilator. Besides, the family spokesman further explained that the hospital did not offer the family this option. Therefore, since the family did not have knowledge about the option, they did not bother to ask.

Conversely, the health care professionals had a contrary statement regarding the case. Since October 2010, Baby Joseph was undergoing treatment at London Health Science Center (Conley, 2011). The healthcare facility’s statement was that the position they took was consistent with the treatment plan and it was in the interest of the child. The plan that Ontario Consent and Capacity Board approved included transferring the child home on a life supporting machine and placing him in the hands of their parents before withdrawing the breathing machine. Moreover, the statement also indicated that a tracheotomy was not necessary since it was a palliative procedure. According to Tejwani, et al. (2013), a tracheotomy is a procedure that involves installing a device in the windpipe to relieve a restriction to breathing. On the same note, this procedure is usually done on patients who are in need of a long-term breathing machine. Unfortunately, Baby Joseph’s case was different since he was suffering from a fatal progressive neurodegenerative disease. This controversy ignited a debate among different special interest groups.

In conclusion, since parents will have to live with the consequences of end-of-life decisions, health care providers must ensure that they do their best to exhaust many possible avenues before making the final decision. In most cases, doctors adhere to the request of the family by making decisions that are in the best interest of the child. The perspectives of both the family and physicians can find common ground if they involve other people to provide the family with emotional, religious and spiritual support. Life-ending decision is always an impossible choice to make since parents would try everything to avoid losing their child (Tejwani, et al., 2013). Also, since this case resulted in a conflict, involving an ethics committee would be appropriate in the decision-making process.

Reference

Conley, M. (2011). Parents fight Canadian hospital for child’s survival. abc News. Retrieved on May 30, 2017 from http://abcnews.go.com/Health/baby-josephs-treatment-sparks-controversy-pediatric-end-life/story?id=13032001

Tejwani, V., Wu, Y., Serrano, S., Segura, L., Bannon, M., & Qian, Q. (2013). Issues surrounding end-of-life decision-making. Patient preference and adherence, 7, 771.

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