Reply #26: Hospital to end life support-Houston woman faces second fight in 2 months [View All]

[liveoaktx]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/metropolitan/3157837

**Remember this? Case came up the same time as Schiavo, same general circumstances, family wanted to keep husband alive, but in Texas, a hospital can pull the plug against a families wishes.

A San Antonio hospital has decided to withdraw life support from the Friendswood invalid whose family successfully fought a Houston facility with the same plans last month.

Southeast Baptist Hospital notified the family of Spiro Nikolouzos last week that doctors plan to turn of his ventilator and stop feeding him intravenously May 3. The notification followed the hospital ethics committee's determination that continued care would be futile.

"Can you believe a hospital's trying to do this again?" Nikolouzos' wife, Jannette, said. "It's very aggravating — I never thought this would happen again."

Jannette Nikolouzos said she and an adult son will travel to San Antonio to investigate their options, mostly whether they can find a doctor who will agree to reinsert her husband's feeding tube. Avalon Place, a San Antonio nursing home who'd cared for him earlier, requires patients have a feeding tube rather than be nourished intravenously.