The family of a dying patient at a Florida hospital has filed an emergency appeal they hope will overturn a lower court’s decision and force Mayo Clinic to give their preferred treatment for COVID-19.
Judge Marianne Aho of Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit ruled against the family during an emergency hearing on Dec. 30.
In her order, Aho wrote that attorneys for the family of Daniel Pisano “have not established that the rights of privacy, self-determination, or any other right, entitles them to” the injunction they were seeking.
But attorneys for the family insist the Florida Patient’s Bill of Rights gives Daniel Pisano’s family the right to choose his treatment.
The patient’s son and his wife of 51 years have power of attorney giving them the legal right to make medical decisions for him while he is unconscious. And that includes the right to choose his treatment, argue their attorneys, Nick Whitney, of Jacksonville, and Jeff Childers, of Gainesville.
But they’re running out of time to provide life-saving treatment, according to the family’s trusted doctor, who’s reviewing Pisano’s chart through an online portal.
The Pisano family’s attorneys filed an emergency appeal in Florida’s First District Court of Appeal late Jan. 9 that seeks to overturn Judge Aho’s decision. At the time of publication, a hearing had not been set, and Mayo Clinic had not filed a response to the lawsuit.
Mayo Clinic has not responded to requests from The Epoch Times for comment on the case and the organization’s lawyers have requested that their communications in the case be sealed.
The use of ventilators seem to push patients on to a path of death, says Dr. Eduardo Balbona, the independent Jacksonville doctor helping the Pisano family.
“In New York, over 65 ICU ventilated patients [had] a mortality of 97 percent,” he testified before Judge Aho.
“I know in [Ascension’s] St. Vincent’s [Southside Hospital in Jacksvonille, in the] ICU, Delta last summer had a mortality of 93 percent. It’s very hard to get those kind of mortality levels from the virus itself. I believe the treatment we’re using is doing harm.”
Balbona was trained at the National Naval Medical Center and was an official doctor providing care for members Congress at the U.S. Capitol. Because he is not officially associated with Mayo Clinic, he cannot provide care to Pisano there.
His hope is that a judge will order Mayo Clinic doctors to provide the treatment he’s prescribed, allowing Pisano to be weaned from the ventilator and discharged. Only then would the Pisano family be free to follow his directives. His experience treating seriously ill patients leads him to believe Pisano could improve quickly, once started on the protocol he has recommended.
By Nanette Holt
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