There was no “death panel” involved with Archie Battersbee though. He had a Glasgow coma level of 3, the literal lowest (which is proportional to survival odds), and didn’t even have a pulse for over 40 minutes. He was most likely dead by the time his mother found him, and was certainly dead at the hospital. If memory serves his brainstem was even beginning to suffer from necrosis before they pulled treatment.
+1 Your eyes don’t open for any reason.
+1 You can't speak or make sounds.
+1 You don’t move in response to pressure.
So you get points for existing, and the tests can include causing pain (pinch ear, press nail bed, knuckles to chest [depending on jurisdiction]) to make someone have movement.
However, while GCS of 3 is the bottom of the GCS chart, it's not the only measurement used.
"Conclusions. We believe that patients with blunt head injury presenting with a GCS score of 3 should be treated aggressively. Our results showed that 50.8% of these patients survived their injury and 13.2% achieved a good functional outcome at the 6-month follow-up." - NIH
My favorite part of GCS: Emergency care books say "don't worry you don't have to memorize this, you'll always have a chart", yet calculating it exactly is on 2 different US emergency care national exams.
The point is not that there's a literal death panel, but instead the healthcare committee trampled over the rights of parents and individuals. If they want to bring their children overseas for treatment, the white coats should get the fuck out of their way. By the logic of the other commenters, "My body my choice" is only for political causes you believe in amirite?
Je suis Alfie Evans, Charlie Gard, Archie Battersbee.
There was no “death panel” involved with Archie Battersbee though. He had a Glasgow coma level of 3, the literal lowest (which is proportional to survival odds), and didn’t even have a pulse for over 40 minutes. He was most likely dead by the time his mother found him, and was certainly dead at the hospital. If memory serves his brainstem was even beginning to suffer from necrosis before they pulled treatment.
For context a GCS Score of 3 is:
+1 Your eyes don’t open for any reason. +1 You can't speak or make sounds. +1 You don’t move in response to pressure.
So you get points for existing, and the tests can include causing pain (pinch ear, press nail bed, knuckles to chest [depending on jurisdiction]) to make someone have movement.
However, while GCS of 3 is the bottom of the GCS chart, it's not the only measurement used.
"Conclusions. We believe that patients with blunt head injury presenting with a GCS score of 3 should be treated aggressively. Our results showed that 50.8% of these patients survived their injury and 13.2% achieved a good functional outcome at the 6-month follow-up." - NIH
My favorite part of GCS: Emergency care books say "don't worry you don't have to memorize this, you'll always have a chart", yet calculating it exactly is on 2 different US emergency care national exams.
The point is not that there's a literal death panel, but instead the healthcare committee trampled over the rights of parents and individuals. If they want to bring their children overseas for treatment, the white coats should get the fuck out of their way. By the logic of the other commenters, "My body my choice" is only for political causes you believe in amirite?