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Unilateral Refusal Of Treatment And Patient Abandonment: Betancourt V. Trinitas Hospital, Brief Of Amicus Curiae, Law Professor Thaddeus Mason Pope, Thaddeus M. Pope

Thaddeus Mason Pope

Betancourt v. Tinitas Hospital is now pending before the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court. Trinitas Hospital is appealing a March 2009 trial court injunction, ordering its physicians to continue providing life-sustaining medical treatment (particularly dialysis) that these providers judged to be medically inappropriate and outside the standard of care.

In early 2009, patient Ruben Betancourt was in a permanent vegetative state with multi-organ failure and slim prospects for recovery. Still, the patient’s daughter, Jacqueline, would not accede to recommendations to stop dialysis and switch to palliative care. When it became apparent that providers might unilaterally withdraw Mr. …