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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

A Texas Senate Bill Would Revise the State’s End-of-Life Procedure

By Becca Aaronson
The Texas Tribune/The New York Times
Originally published March 31, 2013

Texas lawmakers have grappled year after year over whether families or medical professionals should decide when to end a terminally ill patient’s life-sustaining care. This year, they seem closer to a compromise.

“If we were only making decisions based on medical facts, everything would be straightforward,” said Dr. Leigh Fredholm, the medical director of Seton palliative care at the University Medical Center Brackenridge in Austin. “But that’s not how we make decisions.” (Seton is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.)

State law allows physicians to discontinue treatment they deem medically futile. If a physician’s decision to end treatment contradicts the patient’s advance directive or the judgment of the patient’s surrogates, state law gives patients or their families 10 days to find another provider and appeal the doctor’s decision to a hospital ethics committee.

Advocacy groups that identify as “pro-life” say existing law does not go far enough to protect the interests of patients or their families. But they are divided on how legislators should change it. While support in the Legislature’s upper chamber seems to be coalescing around Senate Bill 303, which would tweak the process, some support bills that would bar doctors or hospital ethics committees from making the final decision to end treatment.

The entire story is here.