The family of a woman who was issued a death certificate by an Ontario hospital is fighting to keep her on life support and enlisting the help of an outspoken U.S. physician who claims doctors are rushing to “get her organs” for donation.
Taquisha McKitty, 27, was checked into Brampton Civic Hospital on Sept. 14, following a drug overdose. Her father, Stanley Stewart, said she was breathing on her own for three days after she was admitted.
He said she was given “no intervention” by her caregivers and eventually put on life support. The family was given a death certificate on Sept. 20.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Lucille Shaw granted an injunction on Thursday allowing McKitty to stay on life support until she can be evaluated by another doctor. Her family and friends insist she continues to show signs of life.
“If you are there with her and you touch her and you grab her feet, she will pull her feet from you. If you tickle her she will move her feet. In one instance, one of her cousins was squeezing her hand and asked her to show her thumb, and she moved her thumb,” McKitty’s father Stanley Stewart told CP24 on Thursday.
The family has retained Dr. Paul A. Byrne, a retired U.S. physician promoted by an anti-organ donation website, to speak on their behalf. He believes McKitty’s doctors are not acting in her interest.
“They continue to say she is dead by neurological criteria. That is so they can get her organs. That is really what they want,” he said. “She is living. She is alive, and she always has been a live person since the beginning of her life.”
Dr. Bryne insists McKitty should receive a hormone-based course of treatment in concert with nutritional elements like folic acid and vitamin B12.
“In patients like this, if they get treated with thyroid hormone and other things, they have a chance to continue to live. They have started some thyroid on her, because most doctors know that a patient gets deficient in thyroid. But they only give a little bit, which is enough to keep her organs in good shape for somebody else,” he said.
The William Osler Health System, which includes Brampton Civic Hospital, said in a statement that its physicians “adhere to an extensive and exhaustive end of life process in all end of life cases.”
While the hospital said that it can’t comment specifically on McKitty’s case due to patient confidentiality, it confirmed that at least two physicians must sign off for someone to be declared brain dead.
Stewart said he is not convinced his daughter received the care she needed prior to the doctors’ ruling.
The family’s next court date is in about two weeks. Stewart continues to hold out hope that he will see his daughter conscious again.
“I’m hanging in there, but it’s tough. It’s definitely tough,” he said. “We just want the community and the public at large to know what is going on.”
With files from CP24
