Man in hospital many months due to Covid served papers, hospital wants to appoint guardian

[dalton99a]

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/man-in-hospital-many-months-due-to-covid-served-papers-hospital-wants-to-appoint-guardian

Man in hospital many months due to Covid served papers, hospital wants to appoint guardian
by Robyn Oguinye
Monday, September 6th 2021

SAN ANTONIO (KABB/WOAI) - A New Braunfels family looking at $4 million in hospital bills is now facing another challenge.

Mark Miranda has been in the hospital for seven months due to Covid complications.

The husband and father of two is still on a ventilator and making slow progress.

A visit from the Comal County Sheriff's Department last week is making their medical misfortune a nightmare.

Mark was served papers ordering him to appear in court.

A request from Christus Santa Rosa asks Mark be stripped of his rights to make decisions on behalf of his health and forfeit them to a group called Angel Guardians.

The family claims it's an effort to remove him from the hospital.

"I don’t think it’s fair and I can make my own decisions," says Mark.

[msongs]

1. if he's well enuff to talk maybe he should leave hospital for a skilled nursing facility nt

[KentuckyWoman]

2. If he is on a vent

He is saying what he wants in another way. Verbal is one of many ways to communicate

[LisaL]

4. He is actually talking. It's in the video.

NT

[Crunchy Frog]

14. He's on a trach. That's pretty clear from the video.

[NCjack]

3. Time for this loafer to get his anti-vax butt out of bed and out working to pay his debt.

[LisaL]

8. He's been in the hospital for seven months.

So he presumably wasn't even eligible for the vaccine yet when he got infected.

[NCjack]

11. I neglected to add the "sarcasm" smiley. Just did it.

[Crunchy Frog]

10. He's been there seven months. I doubt

that he was eligible for the vaccine when he got sick.

I got vaxxed as soon as I was eligible, and have only been fully vaxxed for around four months.

I hate the antivaxxers as much as anyone, but let's not get carried away with the knee jerk reactions.

[zuul]

17. Ummm, pretty sure the 'sarcasm' emoji means

that it was not a ‘knee jerk reaction.’

[Crunchy Frog]

18. The emoji was added after my post.

[Trueblue Texan]

5. They don't need guardianship...

In Texas, the hospital ethics committee can basically strip you of any right you have to life support. They have to give you 10 days to find another hospital to go to and if you don't go, they can remove your life support without you or your family's consent. Once the 10 days countdown begins, no other hospital is going to take you. If you don't have someone to fight for your right to live, you are going to die. I have less sympathy for the anti-vaxxers, but that law is not right. You can bet insurance companies are behind it.

[LisaL]

6. Isn't that for someone in a coma or vegetative state?

This dude is talking so he is not in either state.

[Trueblue Texan]

7. As far as I know that is not a criteria...

[LisaL]

9. This could be a situation where his lungs are so damaged he could never survive

outside the hospital.
Hospital knows its unlikely to see any of those millions, and costs could run a lot higher if he has to stay there for who knows how long.

[Crunchy Frog]

15. A fine example of Texas "pro-life" values in action.

[LeftInTX]

21. This is a Catholic hospital and I worked there at one time

This story isn't adding up. Odds are they have found a rehab facility that can provide life support for him. There are plenty of them.
Your rights to a DNR often get tossed out in a Catholic hospital.

[Crunchy Frog]

28. Our Catholic hospital here tried to kill my mother's SO,

who had Alzheimers, when he was there with pneumonia. He was costing the Catholic run care program more than they were getting for him from the government.

The program then put heavy pressure on her to sign a DNR when she wasn't ready to, and also to just let him die instead of going to the hospital the next time he got pneumonia.

I don't count on Catholic run hospitals or other health programs to be more concerned about "life" than they are about money.

I'm going to wait and see how this situation develops.

[Trueblue Texan]

32. EXACTLY!

My sister was Andrea Clark. Google: Andrea Clark and Texas futile care law

See what you get.

The hospital in question is Catholic. People are unaware of this law for the most part. Texas Right to Life helped me fight for Andrea, but that's the only credit I'll give them. I have to question how much the sanctity of life really matters to them, as heedless as they are of women's rights.

[liberal_mama]

35. That happened with my brother-in-law, who died in 2015 at age 49

They really did a hard sell on us with them wanting him to sign a DNR. He was on a ventilator for several months, but fully conscious. He couldn't speak due to the ventilator, but we communicated with gestures and notes. They wanted him gone, unfortunately, so they talked him into signing the DNR. The very next day after he signed the DNR, they removed him from the ventilator and he died about 8 hours later. It was ghoulish.

[Hortensis]

34. Yes, it isn't adding up. Need to know more.

This makes it sound as if this man is capable of expressing his wishes at very least.

[LeftInTX]

20. This is a Catholic hospital and they are into the life support stuff over there.

I used to work there

[FakeNoose]

12. I don't know about other states (I live in PA)

... but doesn't the hospital normally have a social services representative, maybe even a Medicare representative, who will handle these details?

Even before Covid, hospitals have had to deal with patients who became incapacitated, and couldn't make decisions on their own. It only makes sense to have someone from the hospital taking care of these important details. I want to believe that it isn't some insidious plot.

[LisaL]

13. He is conscious and talking.

He answers questions. He can answer if he wants his life support continued or not.

[Tanuki]

16. Why wouldn't his wife be the one to make medical decisions on his behalf if he

were incapacitated?

[Horse with no Name]

23. My best guess would be that the family is refusing

To transfer him out and he is taking up an acute care bed and they need him out.

[LeftInTX]

19. This is a strange story. Christus Santa Rosa is Catholic hospital

Usually the hospital gets involved when there is a DNR that they won't honor or something like that. They will often go against the will of the family when there is a DNR. I don't know what the conflict is here because it almost sounds like the opposite problem.

However, there are rehab centers and nursing homes who do accept patients on ventilators

[Horse with no Name]

22. Not unfunded ones

The cases like this that I have seen happen when a patient doesn’t have funding, the family refuses to allow transfer to a SNF or a Nursing Home, refuses to take him home, patient not able to participate in therapy or any combination of the above.
Sad situation but Texas has a few laws on the books to allow the hospitals to deny care.

[LeftInTX]

24. I worked at this hospital 35 years ago.

I don't think they would put him in a situation that did not provide life support.

I would not want to be a patient there because sometimes DNRs get tossed aside.

[Horse with no Name]

26. They send kids home on vents

There is a dynamic that isn’t being shared.

[LeftInTX]

30. Yes, absolutely. Worked with a few kids at home on vents.

[LisaL]

31. Yea, I don't think we are getting the whole story.

Not sure why the guy hasn't been transferred to a long term care facility.

[ecstatic]

25. The confusing part for me is... how do you talk when on a ventilator?

I thought they stuck something down your throat? That said, I'm not interested enough to click on the article and read more. I wish him well.

[Horse with no Name]

27. He is trached

You can occlude the trach to allow you to speak

[LeftInTX]

29. There are different levels of vent treatment

He probably has the ability to breathe on his own, but his lung performance is poor. There is a way of speaking when on a vent. Sometimes you speak between breaths..Sometimes people physically pause the thing for a second.

Ahh Horse with No Name got it right

[Hortensis]

33. The hearing is supposed to be today. nt