Jahi McMath Case: Brain-Dead Girl's Move Procedures Approved

—By Bay City New Service

Attorneys for Children's Hospital Oakland and the family of a 13-year-old brain-dead girl agreed today on procedures that could allow her to be moved to another facility for further treatment.

At a hearing in Alameda County Superior Court, Children's Hospital attorney Douglas Straus said the two sides have reached a stipulation for the "possible removal" of Jahi McMath to another facility if certain conditions are met.

Straus said those conditions include that the Alameda County coroner must sign a document accepting Jahi's body and that Jahi's mother, Nailah Winkfield, must agree to be "wholly and exclusively responsible" for Jahi's medical condition if she is moved from the hospital.

Jahi has been at the hospital since Dec. 9, when she underwent a tonsillectomy procedure that was intended to cure a sleep apnea problem that had made it difficult for her to sleep.

However, she suffered complications after the procedure and doctors declared her brain dead on Dec. 12.

Christopher Dolan, the attorney for Jahi's family, asked Judge Evelio Grillo to order Children's Hospital to insert a gastric feeding tube so that Jahi can get nutrition and a tracheostomy tube that would make it easier for her to breathe while she's transferred to another facility.

But Grillo denied that request, saying that inserting the tubes is "a medical determination that has to be made by physicians."

Even though Grillo denied Dolan's request, Dolan said outside of court that he considers the hearing today to be "a victory" because there's no prohibition against Jahi's family bringing an outside doctor into the hospital to insert the tubes.

Grillo said Jahi's status is "very fluid" and things are now starting to fall into place to have her moved from Children's Hospital to another facility.

A federal judge in Oakland will hold a separate hearing on Jahi's situation later this morning and there will also be a hearing in an appellate court in San Francisco this afternoon.

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