And then there's the Terri Schindler Schiavo case and the role of the Cleveland Clinic. A crucial question still lingers: How and why did a Pinellas County probate court judge choose Ohio neurologist Peter Bambakidis to be his expert witness out of all the neurologists in the country?People who still worry about President Bush's attendence at his National Guard drills tell us that this issue should be over.
Sixth Circuit Judge George W. Greer had issued his first death order in the Schiavo case in February, 2000, granting Michael Schiavo's petition to discontinue artificial life support, not all food and water, natural AND artificial, as was his last order of February, 2005. As a result of the hearsay testimony of Schiavo, Schiavo's brother and sister-in-law, Greer decreed that the alleged declarations were reliable that Terri would want the feeding tube removed and that she was in a persistent vegetative state.
Following a series of motions and hearings, in October 2002, the Second District Court of Appeals sent the case back to Greer to conduct an evidentiary hearing regarding the brain damaged woman's medical condition.
The 2nd DCA ordered that five doctors be selected to provide expert testimony. Two were to be chosen by Michael Schiavo, two by the Schindlers, Terri's parents; and one, an independent expert, was to have been selected by mutual agreement of the parties.
But the parties couldn't agree on the "impartial doctor" so Greer seemingly hand-picked Dr. Peter Bambakidis of Cleveland, Ohio to be the independent examining physician, charged with providing an independent medical review.
Bambakidis is not on the staff of the Cleveland Clinic but is chief of neurology at Fairview Hospital which is associated with the Clinic.
The impartiality of Bambakidis has long been challenged. A review of his testimony at the October 2002 evidentiary hearing reveals improper ex parte communications between Greer and George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo. It also reveals that "they" had sought a doctor to testify from the Cleveland Clinic although Bambakdis failed to reveal under oath who "they" were. Greer specially telephoned Bambakidis, not the clinic, and asked him to be an independent expert witness. How Greer chose Bambakidis is yet unknown. [Emphasis added.]
But a woman is dead, and the story of how that came to happen has still not fully been told. It appears that the court made a diagnosis, and that it chose the evidence it wanted to support the verdict it desired. Why?
3 comments:
excuse me, the Schiavo article wasn't written by Spirit Daily. That's a copyrighted article written by June Maxam of The North Country Gazette. www.northcountrygazette.org There is an archive there of over 200 articles on the schiavo case and a book of some 250 more articles on the case. Give credit where credit is due. SPirit Daily only picked up the link
You're quite right, of course, as anyone clicking the link could see. The "H/T" doesn't indicate authorship, but credit for where I found the article.
I heartily applaud North Country Gazette for its continued coverage of the Schiavo case.
The bottom line is this:
A disabled woman was starved and dehydrated to death. It is illegal to do this to puppies.
During life, she was denied basic physical therapy care that is given to anyone in her condition.
Secondly, the case was grossly mischaracterized as a "right to die" case and it wasn't. Right-to-die laws and legislation pertain to the terminally ill.
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