Judge extends order preventing hospital from taking Jahi McMath off of a ventilator
By Dave Andrusko
Omari Sealey makes a statement to the media on the condition of his niece Jahi McMath on Monday.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press / December 30, 2013)
At the eleventh hour Monday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo extended his temporary restraining that prevented doctors from Children’s Hospital Oakland from taking 13-year-old Jahi McMath off a ventilator. Judge Grillo’s original order was set to expire at 5:00 pm west coast time.
Jahi has been diagnosed by physicians, including Dr. Paul Fisher, a court-appointed pediatric neurologist from Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as brain-dead. Her family challenges the diagnosis, saying Jahi responds to her mother’s voice. They want the teenager transferred to a facility in New York that they say is willing to accept her for long-term care.
On a separate track, a state appeals court also issued a 24-hour stay yesterday, “declaring that Jahi must remain on the ventilator through 5 p.m. Tuesday, until the court can hear the family’s case,” the Oakland Tribune reported. (CNN reported this morning that the family is also “filing a new complaint in federal court requesting a temporary restraining order and an injunction to prevent the hospital from disconnecting Jahi from life support.”)
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