Texas Patient Rights

The Advance Directives Act of 1999 (Section 166.046 of the Health and Safety Code), originally S.B. 1260, breezed through the health committees of both branches of the 76th legislature and was placed on the Local and Uncontested Calendar, where unopposed bills are voted on. In other words, the futile care law didn't receive a single opposing vote as it made its way through the legislature into hospitals that now practice involuntary euthanasia on patients.

Several members of the 76th Legislature's House Public Health Committee and Senate Health Services Committee (now the Health and Human Services Committee) still serve on those committees. These individuals bear greater responsibility for this immoral law than newer committee members.

In the House Public Health Committee, current members who voted in the 76th Legislature to send the futile care law to the Local and Uncontested Calendar are: Chair, Diane Delisi, Garnet Coleman, Vicki Truitt, and Jim McReynolds.

In the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, Chair Jane Nelson occupied a seat (chair person) in the 76th Legislature committee that sent the futile care law to the Local and Uncontested Calendar.

I can't imagine what members of the 76th Legislature were thinking, if they were thinking at all, when they passed the futile care law. But this many years later, the devastating effects of the law on Texas patients and their families cannot be denied. We can only hope that members of the legislature and the health committees have been paying attention to the way this law has violated the rights of Texas citizens.

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