The 95-year-old woman at the center of an unusual court battle over whether her feeding tube would be removed was released from the Queen’s Medical Center on Friday, feeding tube intact.
Karen Okada was taken by private ambulance to a family-owned nursing home in Aiea capable of caring for Okada, who relies on a feeding tube that was inserted in December 2011 after a tracheotomy, said her family’s attorney, Scott Makuakane.
"The significance of today is that Karen is getting another chance," Makuakane said Friday. "She’s getting the chance to recover to the point where she can communicate with family members."
At Okada’s bedside Friday, Makuakane said Okada had been "looking at me in the eye, and she was trying to speak. Her mouth and tongue were moving, and she was looking around the room. I was trying to explain to her what’s going on."
Makuakane represents Okada’s brother —former Honolulu City Council Chairman George "Scotty" Koga — who fought Queen’s efforts in Circuit Court to remove Okada’s feeding tube as stipulated in an advanced health care directive that Okada signed in 1998.
Okada’s doctors had testified at a one-day hearing Sept. 7 that Okada would die a "natural death" two to three weeks after her feeding tube was removed.
But Okada also signed a separate document in 1998 that gave Koga power of attorney over his sister, and Koga did not want the feeding tube taken out.
Circuit Judge Patrick Border had suggested that he would not decide which document superseded the other until late October, which prompted Queen’s officials to agree to release Okada to her brother against the hospital’s medical advice.
The case had generated concern among seniors and their families in Hawaii about the strength of their own advanced health care directives — and highlighted the need for elderly patients to make sure their end-of-life wishes are understood by family members.
Okada had suffered a series of medical problems, including a 2011 fall that left her with a brain injury, followed by a stroke last year and a more recent bout of pneumonia that sent her from the Hale Nani nursing home to Queen’s on Aug. 8.
Her feeding tube was inserted after Okada fell in December 2011.
"She wasn’t supposed to make it through the night," Makuakane said. "And she wasn’t supposed to wake from her coma, but she did. Now it’s a new lease on life for Karen."
