Jan 19, 2006 5:31 pm US/Eastern
Comatose Girl's Condition May Have Changed
Tests Planned For Haleigh Poutre
SPRINGFIELD (CBS4) ―
Doctors will perform more tests Thursday on a severely beaten 11-year-old comatose girl who is now responding to medical stimuli and breathing on her own. These developments come just a day after Massachusetts' highest court ruled the state had the authority to remove her from life support.
"There's a possible change in her condition," DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro said Wednesday. "She's having some responses."
Monteiro would not say how Haleigh Poutre was responding or what tests she was responding to. She said doctors will perform more tests Thursday "to see what the movements mean."
The Boston Globe reported Thursday that Haleigh has been removed from her ventilator. But late Thursday morning a spokesperson for the DSS told CBS4's Dan Rea that she is on and off a ventilator.
Haleigh's biological mother, Allison Avrett, of Westfield, said she met with DSS officials and doctors Wednesday but would not comment on reports of her daughter's responses.
Haleigh has been in a coma since Sept. 11, when she was hospitalized with a damaged brain stem. Her adoptive mother and stepfather were charged with assault, but her adoptive mother later died in what was either a double suicide or murder-suicide.
Her stepfather, who could face a murder charge if Haleigh dies, has fought to keep her on life support. But the state's Supreme Judicial Court turned down Jason Strickland's appeal Tuesday, ruling that Haleigh's feeding tube and ventilator can be removed by DSS, which has custody of the girl.
Haleigh's doctors have said in the past the girl is in a permanent vegetative state, and would likely die in a matter of days if her ventilator and feeding tube are removed.
Strickland's lawyers said they have not decided whether to bring their case before a federal judge.
Along with deciding that Strickland has no say in Haleigh's medical care, the state's highest court also denied his request to unseal court documents related to Haleigh's life support.
The documents were not released to the public because of confidentiality laws, and that has led to some concerns that DSS is making life-and-death decisions without any outside review.
Mark Dupont, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, said church officials are concerned that Haleigh's case "seems awfully rushed" and has received no input from anyone outside DSS.
"There should be other voices allowed to review this," Dupont said. "We may all come to the same decision that removing her from life support is the appropriate action. But from a moral standpoint, we don't have enough information to make that determination."
Although the SJC decision was unanimous, it prompted Justice Francis Spina to urge the Legislature to "re-examine" privacy laws when it comes to a state agency seeking to withdraw someone's life support.
"The need for open proceedings is particularly compelling where an agency of the executive branch of government seeks to persuade the judicial branch of government to withdraw life support," Spina wrote. "Decisions of this gravity, made with this concentration of government involvement, should be made in public."
Although Spina's remarks make clear that "there is not a hint" that DSS is acting inappropriately, the SJC's decision does list more than a dozen instances where the agency received reports that Haleigh was being neglected or abused.
The decision notes that no allegations of mistreatment were supported until September, when Haleigh was hospitalized.
"It's troubling to read the narration of multiple complaints to DSS and now find out that DSS is left to make the final decision about this child," said John Egan, one of Strickland's lawyers. "And that decision is being made behind closed doors."
Haleigh's case has not become a lightening rod for debate of end-of-life issues, but legal and medical observers say life and death decisions should not be made secretly by a government agency.
"You need to balance transparency with a right to privacy," said Michael Levinson, a Miami physician and attorney who practices health care law and has followed Haleigh's case. "It's tough for government agencies to be accountable if decisions are made in the dark."
(© 2006 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
