Emergency!
Please take action immediately--if you don't, it is guaranteed that innocent Texans WILL die because the legislature is moving that direction even as you read this.
There is a massive and powerful lobby in corporate medicine that is not only trying to make sure we are unsuccessful in protecting patients, but in fact they are pushing for new legislation that will further undermine patient rights and medical treatment. We are already far into the legislative session and it will be another 2 years before we get another chance to change this law or to overturn a proposed law that is even worse than the current statute.
Please do not sit on your hands!
If you've never been moved to take action before, just MAKE YOURSELF do it now to help the most helpless of our society. Please call or email your senators and representatives as soon as you've finished reading this--I've got a sample script below if you're afraid you'll choke and won't say/write the right thing, just PLEASE do this and do it RIGHT NOW! It's a mere inconvenience to you, and your action could very well save lives!
Follow this link http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Home.aspx to the legislature home page. On the right side of the page you'll find a gray box. The third item down you'll see the section titled "Who Represents Me?" Type your address in the form and click the submit button. You'll be taken to a page that lists all your representatives at the federal and state level. Scroll down to the bottom part of the page and look for your Texas State Senator and your Texas State Representative. If you click on their names, you'll be taken to their home pages which lists their office numbers--any of those numbers will work to get your message through to your representative. You can also click their email links to email them.
The legislature is well into the session and we have VERY little time to protect Texas patients. The bills I am asking you to address are SB439 in the Senate and HB1094 in the House. These are identical bills and make a single change to the futile care law: If patients do not agree to have their life support stopped, hospitals must continue life sustaining treatment of patients until the patient is transferred to another hospital. In other words, hospitals won't be able to override patients' rights and kill them against their will. That's it. Nothing slick about it--just stop killing patients who choose to continue fighting. No heroic measures or pioneering treatments or extraordinary procedures are required, just basically, don't starve, dehydrate, suffocate, or poison to death the patients who don't want to be killed.
The problem we are having is getting those bills out of the health committees. The chair of the Senate Health and Human Services committee is Jane Nelson (District 12--Denton and Tarrant County), who has ambitions to run for governor. She knows SB439 has the votes to pass on both the committee and in the Senate. If she allows that happens, she loses big with corporate medicine, the biggest contributor to her campaigns, and she's going to need their big bucks when she runs for governor. If she allows the bill to go to a vote in the committee, she'll have to vote against it to maintain any good graces with corporate money and if she votes against it, she loses big with the right to life community. In other words, if she allows the bill to come to a vote in the committee at all, she stands to lose a lot. (never mind how much the patients stand to lose if she doesn't allow a vote on it, this is politics!)
Things are more complicated in the House. The House Public Health committee is chaired by Diane "White" Delisi ("White" as in Scott & White Clinics--hardly an unbiased representative of the people, wouldn't you say?) who represents Bell County. She is opposing HB1094 and has her own bill (HB3474) that on the surface sounds slightly better, but in fact is much worse for patients. Her bill extends the 10 day waiting period to 21 days (frankly any time period is equivalent to a death sentence to the patient because when a time period is applied, because hospitals have no incentive to get a patient transferred and in fact, typically do everything they can to prevent transfers from occurring. Basically, once the futile care process is started, patient rights STOP. Period.) But what really makes the bill worse than the current one is that during the 21 day period, if the patient's condition changes, for example, if the patient gets pneumonia during that time, the hospital isn't required to administer antibiotics or to treat the pneumonia even in a basic way, but is only required to continue the treatment that was in effect at the beginning of the 21 days. Obviously, the patient's chance for finding a transfer becomes even slimmer when his condition is allowed to worsen due to lack of basic medical treatment.
Representative Delisi, with her ties to the Scott & White machine has a lot of pressure from corporate medicine. Our job is to put pressure on her from the people she swore to represent.
Even if you don't live in Delisi's district, you can let your own representative know that you want them to encourage Delisi and other members of the House Public Health Committee to vote for "treatment pending transfer" as outlined in HB1094 rather than Delisi's bill. And let your senators know that you want them to encourage Senator Nelson to bring SB439 to a vote in committee.
Here are some example scripts to guide you when you call if you feel nervous:
For Representatives:
My name is <your name> and I'm a constituent. I'm calling to let Representative <your representative> know that it's very important to me that he support and encourage members of the Public Health Committee to support HB1094 that changes the Futile Care law to require hospitals to continue to treat patients until they can be transferred to another facility. Citizens of Texas shouldn't have to lose their rights just because they've become critically ill.
For Senators:
My name is <your name> and I'm a constituent. I'm calling to let Senator <your senator> know that it's very important to me that he support SB 439 that changes the Futile Care law to require hospitals to continue to treat patients until they can be transferred to another facility. I also ask that he strongly encourage Senator Nelson to call for a vote on SB439 in the Health and Human Services Committee.
You can say basically the same thing (with appropriate names supplied, of course) if you choose to email.
Please DO NOT put this off...just MAKE YOURSELF DO IT because it is right to protect these patients---no matter how UNCOMFORTABLE it makes you feel!
Finally, pass this email on to EVERYONE you know in Texas and say a prayer that we can get our bills through committee.
Thank you and God bless you.
The family of Andrea Clark
Information on this website is informational only and is not legal advice. If you have questions or a situation requiring advice, please contact an attorney.