{"id":324780,"date":"2025-01-18T15:30:27","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T21:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=324780"},"modified":"2025-01-17T18:00:26","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T00:00:26","slug":"canadian-boy-hospital-montreal-doctors-life-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/canadian-boy-hospital-montreal-doctors-life-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Boy makes progress in US hospital after parents flee Canada docs who tried to end life support"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A family had to flee their home country of Canada to save their son’s life, after doctors threatened to remove his life support and have his organs donated against their will.<\/p>\n

Nicolas T\u00e9trault told the Federalist<\/a> that his son, Arthur, landed in Montreal Children\u2019s Hospital after an accidental drowning. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to always have perfect attention, and we did not,\u201d he said. \u201cWe should have, but at that time, we didn\u2019t want to install a fence around the pool on the house that did not belong to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

A tragic accident<\/h3>\n

While having left the house to pick up one of his children from school, T\u00e9trault forgot to close a door, allowing Arthur to have access to the pool, and led to his drowning. T\u00e9trault said Arthur’s body was “almost freezing,” and the doctors began slowly raising Arthur’s temperature, gave him an MRI, and gave him sedatives to prevent seizures. All of this is part of the normal standard of care; once stabilized, the sedatives are weaned and the breathing tube removed to see if the patient is able to breathe on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they extubated him three weeks after \u2014 just to do a trial to see if he could breathe on his own \u2014 our baby was able to breathe on his own successfully for about 18 hours or 12 hours,\u201d T\u00e9trault said.<\/p>\n

But they faced another problem: Arthur’s airway had lost its form. Paul Harch, who is currently treating Arthur in the United States, said there is an easy treatment for this: a tracheostomy, which would enable Arthur to breathe on his own. For reasons unknown, doctors chose not to do so.<\/p>\n

Substandard care<\/h3>\n

\u201cThey wouldn\u2019t do a tracheostomy, and instead, were keeping him heavily sedated and told the parents, \u2018He\u2019ll have no quality of life, he\u2019s going to be a vegetable,\u2019 etc.,\u201d Harch said. \u201cHere he was, heavily sedated in the hospital up there, and they\u2019re telling the parents essentially that he will die and or be vegetative the rest of his life. They can\u2019t make that statement. They don\u2019t really know that for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harch also said doctors failed to give Arthur other oxygen treatments frequently used to restore brain function. \u201cIt was all about trying to get him in a hyperbaric chamber as soon as possible,\u201d Harch said. \u201cThe parents then pulled every possible move, influence, leverage \u2014 whatever they could \u2014 to try to get their son treated, and even tried to do the very innocuous but potentially helpful \u2018normobaric\u2019 oxygen. And they just had extreme resistance from the medical staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, T\u00e9trault said they began pressuring the family to donate his organs. \u201cThey were killing him with all these drugs, and they were justifying the fact that they were promoting to harvest the organs and give them away,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were talking about it all the time … My wife and I, they brought us in a death squad meeting and they told us basically, Arthur would be unplugged on Nov. 29.”<\/p>\n

He explained they were given very little time to adjust to this announcement. \u201cWe had 14 days to prepare his funeral and say goodbye to him,\u201d Nicolas T\u00e9trault said. \u201cThey were promoting to harvest the organs and give them away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of Canadian nonprofit Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told the Federalist he wasn’t surprised, as Canada only allows “approved treatments” and that the health care system is already maxed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the case of Arthur T\u00e9trault, the Montreal physicians refused to try hyperbaric oxygen treatment because it wasn\u2019t listed as an available medical treatment in Canada. What is even more concerning is that the doctors were insisting on withdrawing treatment,\u201d Schadenberg said. \u201cArthur is fortunate that his father has demanded treatment and that he was willing to send him to Louisiana for treatment providing hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fleeing to the United States<\/h3>\n

Just four days before he was scheduled to die, the family was able to get Arthur out of the country. \u201cWe were able to bring him to New Orleans at Ochsner Hospital, which was amazing,\u201d T\u00e9trault said.<\/p>\n

Once they arrived, Harch said he was shocked to see Arthur’s condition, as the Canadian medical team had presented him as being near dead. \u201cThey were led to believe that they were coming to pick up a near-dead child, that this kid had no chance \u2014 nothing,\u201d Harch said. \u201cWhen they got there and saw the condition that he was in, which was not as severe as what had been described, it was an eye-opener that they see why this father and mother went to the extremes they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arthur is now awake and alert, able to breathe on his own, and is regaining movement in his limbs. And T\u00e9trault says it is the difference in medical care that means the difference between life and death for his son.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Quebec, it\u2019s a socialist hospital system where the patients are seen as an expense. In the U.S., a patient is seen as an income, as a client,\u201d he said. \u201cIt makes the entire difference in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family has started a GoFundMe<\/a> to raise money for Arthur’s treatment.<\/p>\n

Similar stories<\/h3>\n

Sadly, other families have experienced situations similar to what the T\u00e9trault family is experiencing now, and often without the same positive outcome. This has most frequently happened in the United Kingdom, but even in the United States, families have had to fight for their loved ones’ right to life.<\/p>\n