On Friday May 23, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Not Dead Yet, and 12 other disability rights organizations filed an amicus brief in a case challenging the University of Wisconsin Hospital Center’s alleged practice of counseling families of people with developmental disabilities to withhold care for treatable but potentially life-threatening medical conditions, such as pneumonia. (Disability Rights Wisconsin v. University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, et al., Case No. 2014 AP 135, Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District IV.)
According to the amended complaint (Disability Rights Wisconsin v. University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, et al., Case No 09-CV-2340, filed January 8, 2010, Wis. Circuit Court of Dane County), one thirteen-year-old child died of pneumonia and one adult was denied care after University of Wisconsin Hospital physicians advised families to withdraw antibiotics, nutrition, and hydration. When the child’s regular caregivers objected to withdrawing treatment, UWHC physicians allegedly encouraged the family to have him transferred to the University of Wisconsin Hospital, where he was taken off of antibiotics, nutrition, and hydration, and transferred to hospice care. He died the next day.
In both cases, Disability Rights Wisconsin claimed, doctors allegedly based their determinations on their patients’ supposedly low quality of life as individuals with disabilities, and acted without the approval of the hospital ethics committee.