Woman in coma for 9 years, declared brain dead is still alive, doctors say
Anahita Meshkin lay in bed hooked up to machines at her care facility in Walnut Creek, Calif. on May 10. Doctors have determined that Meshkin, who last year was declared brain dead is still very much alive. (Susan Tripp Pollard/Bay Area News Group via AP)
Mohammad Meshkin put pressure on the hand of his daughter Anahita, who has been comatose for nearly a decade and is hooked up to machines at her care facility in Walnut Creek, Calif., on May 10. Doctors have determined that Anahita, who last year was declared brain dead is still very much alive. (Susan Tripp Pollard/Bay Area News Group via AP)
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. » As a California mother seeks to stop a hospital from ending life support for her brain dead toddler, a father is marking one year since he convinced a judge that his brain-dead daughter was still alive and should keep getting care.
Mohammad Meshkin was told last May that his 29-year-old daughter Anahita Meshkin was brain dead, the San Jose Mercury News reported Tuesday.
The newspaper said she had been in a coma since 2007 after suffering a massive seizure while battling anorexia.
Mohammad Meshkin called attorney Chris Dolan, who filed a temporary restraining order to block the withholding of treatment.
“In my opinion, it is an example of a physician making a resource determination and using brain death as a way to legitimize their beliefs on the quality of life and how they see this as futile,” Dolan said.
A judge ordered further tests and court records show UC San Francisco School of Medicine neurologists Wade Smith and Andrew Josephson determined the woman did not meet the clinical criteria for brain death.
They noted that she moved her head and elbow when they pinched her hands. She remains in a care facility.
Many brain-death diagnoses are no longer taken as certainties. In another California case, a mother filed an emergency appeal to keep her toddler on life support after a lower court order expires on Friday.
Jonee Fonseca asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to override the previous ruling in which a judge refused to order Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Roseville to keep 2-year-old Israel Stinson on life support. However, the judge gave the family time to appeal.
Two hospitals have determined the child is brain dead, but Fonseca wants time to find another facility for him.
Mohammed Meshkin said he has no plans to alter his daughter’s care, despite medical professionals who question his decision. He’s alone in his decision-making: His wife overdosed and died in 2011 amid grief over their youngest daughter’s condition, he said.
“I’ll fight as long as she does,” Meshkin said. “If she quits, I will quit. But I have my hope that she’ll come back.”
John Muir Medical Center spokesman Ben Drew said because of medical privacy laws and out of respect for the family’s privacy, he could not comment on specifics of the case.
Dolan also represented the family of Jahi McMath, a teen girl who had a heart attack and was declared brain dead in 2013 after a tonsillectomy in Oakland.
Her family moved her to New Jersey, which requires medical treatment of patients like McMath who are declared dead and show minimal brain function.
Jahi’s family fought her brain-death diagnosis and won a court order to remove her from UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.
14 responses to “Woman in coma for 9 years, declared brain dead is still alive, doctors say”
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That is fine as long as it’s not the tax payers money that’s paying for her care.
It would not surprise me if the taxpayer is paying, but to me this is very sad. This is not living. No one would want to live this way and these parents need help to understand.
Wasted $Millions of fool taxpayer’s money. Don’t you feel like storming the hospital and pulling that insane procedure?
Unless the girl’s father is financially well-off, it is likely that her long-term care expenses are paid via Medi-Cal which is California’s Medicaid program. So yes, taxpayer monies but her case is not unique as Medicaid monies already pay for the majority of nursing facility residents in long-term care.
As long as Mohammed isn’t paying the hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep her there, it seems to be OK.
It is many Millions, not hundreds thousands!
Wonder if euthanasia is permissible in the case of brain-dead situations in Oregon?
No. Oregon requires the patient be aware and able to drink the fatal dose without assistance.
I understand the parents not wanting to accept it, but it’s time to let them go. Let them move on to where ever it is people go after they die, if anywhere. This is a waste of medical resources and money.
Can you do it to your child. That is the big question. I cry when I read articles like this, I agree this is not living life, but if she does wake from her comma what kind of life will she have at that point.
I can’t speak for anyone involved but for me, this is not a life that I would wish for myself.
You are right – this is a travesty of medicine to keep a bunch of cells going – like cells in a Petri dish and a crime against humanity.
Of course a parent loves his/her child, but keeping this girl on life support is cruel to THE CHILD. I wouldn’t even do this to a dog, much less a human being.
That’s your opinion but you are not the girl’s father so your judgment is irrelevant.