Hospital will not oppose move of Jahi McMath to another facility
Children’s Hospital Oakland has agreed to transfer Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old girl declared brain-dead after a tonsillectomy, but the girl’s family is scrambling to find a facility that will take her.
Doctors at the hospital want to disconnect the girl’s ventilator, but her family is fighting to keep her on life support. A judge has ruled that she be kept on life support until 5 p.m. Monday.
A facility in the Bay Area that had agreed to keep the girl on a ventilator indefinitely no longer has room, the family’s attorney, Christopher Dolan, told KGO-TV San Francisco.
Dolan blamed the situation on a delay caused by Children’s Hospital’s refusal to perform a tracheotomy and insert a feeding tube.
The girl’s family is now searching for a facility in Southern California and will likely ask a court to extend the Monday deadline, according to the KGO-TV report.
After initially suggesting it would oppose a transfer, Children’s Hospital said on Friday that it is willing to work with the family.
“Children’s Hospital will of course continue to do everything legally and ethically permissible to support the family of Jahi McMath,” the hospital said in a letter to Dolan. “In that regard, Children’s will allow a lawful transfer of Jahi’s body in its current state to another location if the family can arrange such a transfer and Children’s can legally do so.”
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