When should treatment stop?

News 8 Austin | 24 Hour Local News | TOP STORIES: "Should it be up to hospitals to decide when treatment stops?"

There is a small child that is terminally ill, and treatment is only prolonging death. That's basically what the hospital is saying as the reason why they want to discontinue treatment, giving the family a couple of weeks to find a different hospital else they're going to "pull the plug" so to speak.

The real reason of course is money. A cost-benefit analysis by the hospital, maybe not called as much but the same, apparently has told them that the value of the boy over the time he's expected to live isn't worth the cost of maintaining or prolonging his life. And maybe they're right.

It's an ethics problem where money plays a huge role. If the treatment for prolonging his life until his death was inexpensive, then there would be no question, he'd live until he died in their care, and the family would be content that everything possible was done.

But, what if the child is suffering a lot of pain or some other turmoil, even though there is inexpensive treatment, or money was no object?

The mother says the hospital has no right to say when they'll stop treatment. Of course she's wrong as the law exists right now, but apparently there is legislation in the works that may change the rights of who can do what.

To me, it's a fairly easy determination since money is the crux. For the hospital, they must determine if they would be negligent if they discontinued life support. The good news is that there is already an equation to determine just that. They may thank Learned Hand for it. He says there is negligence when the burden is less than the probability of harm multiplied by the degree of loss (B < p x L).

However, even if there is no negligence of the part of the hospital, there can still be a harm when suffering is enters the equation. Thus for the parents, it would seem their equation might be there is negligence when the child's suffering is greater than probability of recovery multiplied by the degree of loss.

Also, there may be the issue of "death with dignity." Even if there is no suffering and no problem with costs, would it be more dignified to allow the child to die rather than living unconsciously with a constant dependency on machines?

Here, it appears that the cost to prolong the child's life must be fairly high and they probably know there is little to no chance of recovering those costs. Thus the hospital's burden is probably very high. The child is terminally ill and will not be, sadly, able to contribute anything to society. Thus it seems to me in this case that the hospital may indeed have the right to discontinue treatment.

If the parents are able to find someplace that will continue to keep the child on life support, then I hope they consider what their child has become and perhaps they may decide it more dignified to allow him to rest in peace.