Personal Stories
Most New Yorkers are unaware of the law regarding medical decision making
for incapacitated patients. This page will tell some of the true stories
of
patients and families that illustrate the problems.
Sheila Pouliot
Amid legal tangle, woman turns into a living corpse
Buffalo News/Associated Press
3/3/00
SYRACUSE - Sheila Pouliot's withering body is bloated
from malnutrition as she
lies in her hospital bed. Her muscles are rotting. A
doctor says she is being
forced to "die by millimeters."
A judge, and the woman's family, say it is time to let
Pouliot, 42, die without
further efforts to prolong her life. State Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer says the
state considers the ruling a sanctioning of assisted
suicide.
Swayed by testimony and a visit to Pouliot's hospital
bed, Onondaga County
Judge James Tormey on Wednesday ordered an end to
Pouliot's hydration, as
recommended by the doctors treating her at University
Hospital.
Tormey made a direct plea to state lawyers not to appeal
his decision and
continue the 2-month-old legal battle over Pouliot's
fate. Tormey even challenged
Spitzer to come visit Pouliot himself before the state
proceeded with an appeal.... go to
article
A life ends, but right-to-die case may go on
Buffalo
News/Associated Press, 3/9/00
SYRACUSE - Alice Pouliot Blouin had already made the decision to let her
sister go. When the end came, though, it was no less difficult.
"You think you are prepared for this, but you're really not," said Blouin.
"It was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make in
my life."
It was made that much more difficult by the state, which
fought the family over
what they said was Sheila Pouliot's right to die with
dignity.
The 42-year-old woman, at the center of a legal battle
for more than two months,
died Monday night in University Hospital, less than 24
hours before an appeals
court was to consider whether to continue her hydration
treatment.
Pouliot was profoundly mentally and physically disabled
since infancy. Her family
cared for her at home until she was 20. She was then
placed in a developmental
home. Shortly before Christmas, she was admitted to the
hospital with
gastrointestinal bleeding and pneumonia.
Her family went to court in late December to block the
hospital - a state health
care institution - from providing nutrition or any
lifesaving medical procedures to
Pouliot so she could die with dignity... Go
to Article
...By the end of February, Ms. Pouliot had developed massive edema, due to
continued hydration in the face of protein malnutrition. She began to
develop areas of
skin breakdown at the sites of the Fentanyl patches and in the folds of
her skin. On behalf of the patient, the guardian petitioned for a change
in her treatment plan so
intravenous fluids could be discontinued. Her attending physician, the
Chair of University Hospital's Ethics Committee, and the Medical Director
of University
Hospital all argued that hydration in the absence of the ability to
provide protein was outside standard medical practice and was causing harm
to Ms. Pouliot.
University Hospital stated that it would not opposed a court order to
discontinue fluids.... Go
to Case Summary
The Law vs. What's Right
Judge sits by dying woman, invites AG to do the same, then rules her
life may end
Michael D. Goldhaber
The National Law Journal, March 27, 2000
"There's the law, and there's what's right," says
Justice James Tormey. On the morning of March
1, the judge traveled to Syracuse, N.Y.'s University
Hospital to help decide what was right.
He entered Room 524 and gazed at a patient on
life support whom the state wished him to keep
alive.
Sheila Pouliot, a 42-year-old retarded woman, was
curled up in a ball, groaning. Her intestines hadn't
worked for three months. The 300 daily calories of
sugar water in her hydration line were barely
enough to support cardiorespiratory function. For
lack of protein, her body was devouring itself, her
stomach swelling....
go to article
Law Sought to Allow Relatives To Make Critical Medical Decisions
Tuesday, March 28, 2000
ALBANY — Against the backdrop of a high-profile Syracuse
incident in which an
incapacitated woman was kept alive over the objections of
her family and
physicians, advocates for "substituted judgment" pressed
their case at the
Capitol yesterday.... go to article
