A dying Ontario baby will not have his breathing tube removed today, and could be transferred to a Michigan hospital.
The London Health Sciences Centre said in a release Sunday evening that a Michigan hospital has requested that 13-month-old Joseph Maraachli's medical information be sent to them so they can determine the "feasibility and appropriateness of a potential patient transfer."
"With the family's consent, we are sharing this information and working with the hospital to facilitate their information needs," Laurie Gould, of the hospital's Women and Children's Clinical Services, said in a statement.
"Our focus at this time is to work with the family on a patient care plan and to continue to provide compassionate and dignified care and comfort to Baby Joseph. Our priority is to ensure that all patients receive compassionate, dignified and respectful care."
Joseph Maraachli suffers from a rare, progressive neurological disease and is not expected to live much longer. The disease has progressed so that he is now missing all five brain stem reflexes considered necessary for life. His brain deterioration is irreversible and doctors say is in "a persistent vegetative state." He is on a ventilator and fed through a feeding tube.
Maraachli's parents had a daughter who had the same disease. She died eight years ago, at the age of 18 months.
Before her death, that baby spent her last six months at home, after receiving a tracheotomy -- an incision in her airway to help breathing. Moe Maraachli wants his son to receive the same procedure so he can die at home as well.
But last week, a Superior Court judge in London, Ont. ruled against that option after hearing testimony from a number of pediatric medicine experts.
The doctors testified that they've learned more about the tracheotomies since Joseph's sister died and say the procedure would cause Baby Joseph too much discomfort. It would also increase the risk of infection and pneumonia.
Officials at the London hospital are now deciding whether they could and should transfer Joseph.
Joseph's father Moe Maraachli says removing his son's breathing tube would lead to a "violent" suffocation death. He wants, instead, a more peaceful death.
"I want him to die naturally, by God's order," he told CTV's Canada AM Monday from outside the London Health Sciences Centre where his son is being cared for and where a small group has gathered for a vigil for Joseph.
"I want all his family to give him love and (watch) him peacefully die. He has to be at home."
Maraachli says after watching his daughter die, he does not accept that a tracheotomy would cause his son too much pain.
"She was very peaceful when she passed away," he said.
After losing their court battle last week, the Maraachlis have now hired a new lawyer, Mark Handelman. He says hospital officials now have to decide whether they could and should transfer Joseph.
Handelman notes that if the London hospital chooses to remove life support, they must first seek consent by asking his parents, then relatives, and finally Ontario's Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee.
Moe Maraachli says he will fight for his son "until the last second of his life."
"I think this is my job as a father," he said.
"I don't want to blame myself. If I accept my doctor's right to let my baby pass away, I will say all my life, ‘I blame myself. I did nothing for my baby to let him die by violence.'"
