Baby Joseph at centre of medical debate dies
Posted September 28, 2011 10:50 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Baby Joseph, who was at the centre of a medical, legal and ethical battle over receiving a tracheotomy, has died. He was 18 months old.
Moe Maraachli, the father, said his son died around 4:40 p.m. Tuesday at the family’s home in Windsor, Ont.
Save Baby Joseph, a Facebook page with more than 14,000 followers, was filled with condolences.
London Health Sciences Centre said Baby Joseph was in its care from October 2010 until March 13, 2011, when he was airlifted, against medical advice, to a hospital in the United States.
London doctors determined the baby was in a permanent vegetative state and that his condition was deteriorating. They sought permission to remove the ventilator. But the parents refused and sought for a tracheotomy to be performed.
They said the baby suffered from a severe and progressively deteriorating neurological condition that would be fatal, and that performing a tracheotomy would not be a palliative procedure.
The baby was given a tracheotomy at a hospital in St. Louis, Mo., in March.
Baby Joseph’s parents, who lost another child to the same disease, challenged the hospital’s findings in court but lost.
With files from The Canadian Press
