Brain-dead boy at center of controversy dies

I can sympathize with the family, but I also see the hospital's point of view.  It's tough on both sides when a patient has no hope of meaningful recovery and the bed is needed for other patients who can be helped.

My prayers for the family in there time of grief. While miracles due happen and coma patients have woken up years later this one wasn't meant to be.

"scarce resources" will become a lot more scarce when we have national health insurance. These decisions will be made by a government board then, with no appeal.

Brain death is a legal term. Once someone meets the criteria, there's exactly zero chance they will ever wake up.

When thousands of children throughout the world die every day for lack of clean water and anti-malaria medicine, it adds to the tragedy of this child being kept on a breathing machine for over a week after illness claimed his life.  I actually welcome national health insurance for many, many reasons not the least of which is to begin a discussion of how best to use the very finite amount of money our society has to spend on health care.  Many go without so that a few can be artifically sustained and that is wrong.  Our country spends more on health care than any other industrialized nation and we have nothing in the way of improved health statistics to show for it.

URQ-you are spouting off and don't make any sense.  You are asked to be logical in what You say-where is the logic.  My point of view is people who do not let go are being ver selfish and putting their way of thinking before common sense.  I've always told my children as my mother told us - "let me go!  the future for me is much, much better!  Of course, if you don't believe-what is left?

I am just glad the boy did not have to suffer any longer, I do understand there religion but the child was dead already, his heart was only functioning with meds and pump (artificially)..it is very sad to see so many hold onto what is not viable, I am sure none of us would want to let go of our child but if there is no hope, why make them suffer..I know I sure would not want that !!

as highly religious people, i seems to me, that the parents would object to anything that prolongs life beyond what God has ordained. medicinal drugs and a breathing machine should fall in this catetgory. if this had been my child with this prognosis, i would take him home to be at peace with his family instead of letting him past away at a hospital. ( we have only one child).  there are times (and this time may come to me) when it is best to accept the Almighty's plan and move on. there are also times when nothimg more can be done and you just have to let go. i believe that in all situations there is a purpose, but which may be concealed from us at the time.

From what I have read about this situation.  The parents already thought of him as dead.  They have not seen him since July and he was in the hospital in June I believe.  Though I feel sorry for the child his parents don't have my sympathy. 

Did the parents have health insurance on the child?  If they did then the hospital couldn't say they were using valuable resources on the child. 

Even if the child didn't have insurance it should still be up to the parents.  How is it that assisted suicide is illegal and yet a hospital can tell you when you have to let your family member die?

It should be the parents decision alone. It's hard enough having to watch someone you love die slowly, but when it is your child it breaks your heart. You keep hoping beyond all understanding that a miracle will occur and your child will be healthy and come home. Letting that hope die and letting your child go is the hardest decision for parents to make. A part of your soul dies when you lose a child. I can understand why these parents faught to keep their son with them as long as they could. When my daughter died at five years old, I spent as much time as I could with her at the hospital, however I had four other children at home that needed a mother and needed a life too. I had to work and so did my husband. Leaving my daughter there to take care of my four healthy children was next to torture. So don't be quick to judge. When my Emmy took her last breath I was there holding her and they had to take her from my arms. It is an ache that will never go away. My heart goes out to this boys parents, siblings and family.

Selfish parents.

How sad ... what is this "believing" in their religion as the reason for keeping a dead body alive by artificial means.  If they REALLY believed then they would have let him go to his father who is in heaven.  Their God.  Knowing he was going to a better place.  Instead they made the choice to display their child in such a  horrific media manner.  All this over a dead body (without the brain we are not here) just because they can. 

I understand both sides to this story. I have had a loved one who was only being kept alive by drugs and machines. We finally discussed all the options available with her (the patient) and she choose to be take off the drugs and signed a DNR. It is hard for all involved and must be done by someone who is unbiased. No one wants to loose someone but neither do they want to have that someone not having a fulfilling life. It is hard to let go but in cases like this it is for the best.

This is why the older I get the more I come to separate myself from all religions. That boy was dead. Had we not had machines and meds to keep a few of this organs functioning, not even really alive, just functioning that poor boy would have gone peacefully to what ever God he believed in.

As medical care in this country becomes a premium, who gets the right over another person to choose if that person should be "keep alive", and the poor man has to go without a "fight", or his religious believes. Just because the poor man has no money should make no difference. We all know that it does.

Think of the money that insurance company spent on this child, and there was no hope of ever being a human being again. Think of how many other children could have used that money for treatments that would have made a difference. Religion or not, those parents were just not thinking. It was done for their sake, not their religion or for the child. I don't buy the religious bit for one second.

Hopefully the insurance company won't pay for any charges after brain death and the hospital goes after the parents for the balance of the charges relentlessly.