http://www.canada.com/calgary/story.asp?id={FF2EB8FB-968C-429E-8DA5-B6B977B9FFCF}
Girl says she wants to live
Father insists church elders playing games
Daryl Slade
Calgary Herald
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
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The Calgary girl at the centre of a court battle over enforced blood transfusions for her leukemia has spoken out, one day before a judge rules on her appeal.
"I do not want to die, in spite of everything you might have heard before," the girl, identified under the pseudonym "Mia," said in a one-page statement issued through spokesman Thomm Bokor.
"I want medical treatment that will respect my dignity and my choice, but not what is being forced on me in Alberta."
A Court of Queen's Bench judge is scheduled to rule today on the 16-year-old girl's appeal of a lower court decision forcing her to undergo chemotherapy treatments, particularly blood transfusions. Her name cannot be released under the Child Welfare Act.
The girl's father, who went against his family and the church's strict teachings by agreeing to the treatments at Alberta Children's Hospital, rebuked his daughter's statement as being "choreographed" by church elders.
"It really upsets me they're using her so they can win this case," said the father. "It's a low blow."
The tug of war is essentially between the medical community, which insists the protocol is the only one to fight the girl's life-threatening acute myeloid leukemia, and the Jehovah's Witness faith that strictly prohibits the use of blood products.
Court heard that doctors working with Mia canvassed experts across North America. They unanimously agreed she could die within days without treatment.
But Bokor, of the Hospital Liaison Committee for Jehovah's Witnesses, said the girl "wants to live and has no desire whatsoever to die."
She is a temporary ward of the province under the child welfare director.
Court of Queen's Bench Justice Adele Kent will read her decision today on whether to uphold or overturn the Feb. 18 ruling by family court Judge Karen Jordan.
The girl's lawyer, David Gnam, has argued as a mature minor she should be able to choose alternative treatment.
In particular, he said, she wants to go to Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles under Dr. Michael Lill, director of the bone-marrow and stem-cell transplant program.
"He (Lill) offers me a fighting chance of battling this disease. He and his team will respect my body, my choice and my conscience," said Mia. "I am now being tied and held down to my bed at the Alberta Children's Hospital. I have been sedated. I have been given drugs that interfere with my memory. I am a prisoner. Child Welfare has posted supervisors in my hospital room 24 hours a day."
The father said Mia is not being given the proper facts and his wife has not read anything except for material supplied by the church.
He cited a court-filed affidavit by Laura Scott-Lane, a social worker at Alberta Children's Hospital, who declared the girl told her she was being pressured into refusing blood transfusions.
"Initially, the child co-operated with medical staff but voiced her objections to the transfusions in a way that did not place herself or others at harm," Scott-Lane wrote.
"She has informed me that she has been instructed to 'fight' by both the mother and Mr. Gnam, counsel for the child, and she was confused how passive resistance would not be accepted as 'fighting.' Once the mother began to attend during the blood transfusions, there was an immediate and noticeable deterioration of the child's behaviour."
The girl has undergone two sets of chemotherapy with 14 blood transfusions over the past six weeks and is scheduled, in the next two to four weeks, for another bout of chemo that includes 18 transfusions.
Her father said it was when the hospital placed a chaperon at his daughter's room, 24 hours a day, that she had stopped fighting and was relaxed, calm and pleasant.
"Yesterday (Monday), my wife and daughter refused chemo," said the father.
"The hospital decided they had to continue with chemo, because it had a tight schedule. If they stopped, they run a risk of losing everything they gained so far."
© Copyright 2002 Calgary Herald