Doctors apply to switch off life machine

Press, 24 June 1978, Page 9

Doctors apply to switch off life machine

NZPA St Paul (Minnesota) Attorneys for the Children’s Hospital in St Paul,, i Minnesota, have sought ■ court approval to turn off . life-support systems sustain-■ ling the breathing of a four-; year-old whom a prosecutor . has made the subject of a murder case on grounds she: is medically dead. The Ramsey County Attor- ■ ney (Mr William Randall)■ has charged Stacy Ellison’s I ■ mother, Denise Ellison, aged ■ 24, with third-degree murder! m the case. Doctors have determined t that the patient has suffered )j irreversible cessation of •Itotal brain function and that I she is therefore dead, a hospital petition filed with the! II court said. The petition noted that s i one attending physician, Drj i| Richard Gehrz, had signed a t: death certificate. A hearing -■on the petition was set for sljulv 6 in the Ramsey I ______________________

County District Court before Judge Archie Gingold. The case is the first in Minnesota in which,a homicide charge has been brought while a victim remained on life-support equipment. Minnesota does not have a brain-death law. A bill declaring a person legally dead when there is irreversible cessation of all brain funcI tions was introduced in the 11977 legislature but failed to pass. The girl was admitted to rhe Children's Hospital on June 3. Doctors said she apparently had suffered blows on the head. Her mother was arraigned ion Tuesday on counts of aggravated assault and thirddegree murder. Third-degree murder carries a penalty of up to 25 years in prison. It is definM as death occurring from another felony, without nitenu