Leo Edward Bikus’s daughters asked for a court order to keep giving him care because he moved his feet while in a coma
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has said that a Vancouver hospital can turn off life support for a 65-year-old man who had a heart attack almost three months ago.
The case went to court because Leo Edward Bikus’s daughters asked for a court order to keep him getting care at St. Paul’s Hospital.
In a written decision posted Thursday, Justice Christopher Hinkson said that the court shouldn’t get in the way of the medical advice of the patient’s doctors, who all agreed that stopping treatment would be best for Bikus.
The decision says that on May 18, Bikus had a cardiac arrest that left him without a pulse for 46 minutes and cut off oxygen to his brain.
The decision said that he had an angioplasty and was put in the cardiac intensive care unit at St. Paul’s later that day. Since then, he has been kept alive with a breathing machine and a feeding tube.
His two daughters, Evangeline De Chatillon and Elise Bikus, can make decisions for him in the short term.
In their request for a court order to keep their father on life support, the daughters said that he has been moving more and becoming more aware while in a coma.
But the court ruling says that at least nine doctors who looked at Bikus all came to the same conclusion.
The doctors, who included cardiologists and neurologists, came to the conclusion that continuing the care “would just extend his life and be pointless, leaving him in a vegetative state without any awareness, and would probably cause more harm, such as bed sores, infections, and other complications.”
Daughters say their dad moved his fee
De Chatillon and Elise Bikus questioned the doctor’s assessment of their father’s condition because they had seen him move his feet and other parts of his body.
According to the ruling, several doctors have noticed those movements, but they think they are reflexes and not proof that the person is moving on their own.
The daughters of Bikus filed a notice of civil claim on June 2. They asked St. Paul’s to keep treating their father and to give them an extra three weeks so that they could get “a professional neurologists’ unbiased and independent review of their father’s situation.”
In July, there were several hearings where different judges gave the daughters more time to find a doctor who could look over their father’s medical records.
Hinkson denied the fourth request for more time because the doctor hadn’t gotten a second opinion by August 1.
The judge decided that because Bikus was unable to make decisions for himself, the court had the power to make an order that was in his best interests.
Hinkson wrote, “It is clear that no medical opinion I have seen suggests that Mr. Bikus’s neurological prognosis is anything but very bad.” “There is evidence that continuing treatment would be bad for Mr. Bikus because it could lead to infections, ulcers, sepsis, and other problems.”
The ruling on August 3 gives the acting medical staff of Providence Health Care Society, which runs St. Paul’s Hospital, the power to switch Bikus to a comfort care treatment plan and stop any treatment or care that would keep him alive. They have to do this within 24 hours of the judge signing the order.