Canada: Supremes To Hear The Rasouli Case

The Rasouli case is going to the Canadian Supreme Court. Hassan Rasouli went into hospital for some relatively minor surgery and ended up severely brain damaged and supposedly sank into a “vegetative” state. His doctors want to pull the plug, his family says no.

SUPREME COURT OF CANADA AGREES TO HEAR HASSAN RASOULI CASE

Jonathan Sher writes for the London (Ontario) Free Press and has covered medical disputes that make their way into public view. In that capacity Sher has written about both “Baby Joseph” and Hassan Rasouli. In an analysis piece he wrote Monday, Sher compared and contrasted these two highly sensitive, highly important cases. more

Here’s a good commentary on the case from earlier this year:

Keeping hope alive

The family of Hassan Rasouli has been enduring a situation that any family can relate to. Their husband and father has been lying in Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre for almost nine months, in what his doctors describe as a vegetative state. He has no hope of recovery, they say. Rasouli’s wife and children disagree: they see flickers of recognition when he blinks his eyes.

The question is: who decides? Who has the right to say whether Rasouli and patients like him be kept alive or allowed to die? Doctors or families? more