Hospital says it pulls plug on hopeless

Press, 29 November 1976, Page 9

Hospital says it pulls plug on hopeless

NZPA Brisbane A big State-run Australian hospital has admitted that five or six patients suffering from irreversible brain damage are deliberately taken off life-support systems each year without the knowledge of relatives, and allowed to “die with dignity.”

“Everything possible is done for every patient, but we do not believe in condemning people to life,” Dr John Golledge, hospital medical superintendent of Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, said on Saturday; “In some cases, efforts to extend existence as distinct from life become almost obscene,” said Dr Golledge in an interview with NZPAReuter. The decision to withdraw the life-duplicating machinery, he said, was made by a medical team comprising the patient’s surgeon, physician, and intensive-care specialists, with a purely clinical attitude towards the extent of brain damage. The relatives of the patients involved were not consulted before the death-with-dignity decision: instead, they were simply told that there was no hope of recovery, and that death was inevitable. “We feel it is unfair to involve relatives in making these decisions because it would place the burden of guilt feelings upon them,” he said. Dr Golledge listed the criteria for any decision to withdraw life-support aids at the patient’s inability to breathe spontaneously or maintain his temperature and blood pressure, and the loss of the patient’s reflexes, combined in some cases with the results

of electro-encephalograms and electro-cardiograms. The Queensland State Government’s Health Minister (Dr Llew Edwards), commenting on Dr Golledge’s disclosures, said the death-with-dignity decisions were purely medical. “So far as the Government is concerned, we do not play God,” he said. “Our business is to supply the facilities and equipment to save lives.” Last week, the parents of a 16-year-old Sydney youth critically injured in a car accident allowed doctors to take their son off life-support machinery and let him die. More charges The police have brought six more charges against th,e president of the consortium that built the Montreal Olympic Village, alleging fraud, extortion and seeking pay-offs for contracts. The charges have been laid against Joseph Zappia, president of Les Terrasses Zarolega. Three more charges of fraud, extortion and seeking pay-offs have been lodged against the consortium’s secretary, Gerald Robinson. The two men, along with business associates Andrew Gatty and Rene Lepine, were indicted on similar charges last August. Their court hearings on those charges are scheduled for next month. — Montreal.