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From the
Cincinnati Enquirer:
BATAVIA TWP., Ohio – Ronnie Dragoo (pictured) has been near death for a month. He has cancer.
Mentally disabled since birth, the 56-year-old Clermont County man has been kept alive with the help of a respirator and a feeding tube.
“I think he’s suffering,” Cindy Dragoo of Miami Township, his younger sister, said. “When they lower his pain meds, sometimes he’ll cry.”
She and their Ronnie’s older sister, Donna Dragoo Theile of Newtonsville, felt frustrated because doctors wouldn’t take him off life support.
“He can’t speak in full sentences – he couldn’t tell you he wants to die,” Cindy Dragoo said. “He doesn’t even know what dying means.”
In December, Ronnie Dragoo had surgery to remove a tumor the size of a football, and he’s had three rounds of chemotherapy to treat lymphoma B cancer, his sisters said. He developed pneumonia and other complications.
“Two weeks ago, they called us in and told us that Ronnie was going to die and to say our last words to him,” Theile said. “I have prayed to God to have him die. No one deserves this.”
The 6-foot man has lost a lot of weight. He was down to 143 pounds, Theile said.
“You can see his rib cage and his shoulder blades sticking out,” Theile said.
“This has been a nightmare from hell,” Thiele said. “I think people need to have respect and die peacefully.”
His sisters don’t have the legal authority to make medical decisions for him. He is a ward of the state.
Tammy Murray, who is Ronnie Dragoo’s guardian, has talked with doctors and his sisters about his care. Medicaid has paid for it.
Murray works for Advocacy and Protective Services Inc., which has a contract with the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation & Developmental Disabilities.
Ronnie Dragoo’s situation is complicated but not uncommon, said Karla Rinto, program director for Advocacy and Protective Services Inc. in Columbus.
“We work on end-of-life decisions pretty much every day,” Rinto said of the agency, which provides guardians for about 4,600 mentally disabled people in Ohio.
According to state law, two doctors must agree to sign off on ending life support before a guardian can authorize it, Rinto said. The patient must be diagnosed as having a terminal illness or be permanently unconscious.
“What we heard from the Clermont doctors was they were not comfortable that this was terminal,” Rinto said.
A doctor at Mercy Hospital Clermont was afraid he might be sued if he signed the form provided by the agency, Cindy Dragoo said.
The primary doctor on the case was reluctant to sign off on taking Ronnie Dragoo off life support, said Pete Gemmer, spokesman for Mercy Hospital Clermont.
“It came down to matter of language,” Gemmer said. “There are legal concerns in a situation like that.
“What the doctor did do, though, was write a letter saying he did agree it was in the best interests of the patient to remove him from life support,” Gemmer said.
It’s not uncommon to treat somebody who is unable to discuss their medical care, such as a person in a coma, Gemmer said. However, a legal document called a living will can address a person’s an individual’s preferences.
Some people who are mentally disabled have living wills, Rinto said. However, Advocacy and Protective Services Inc. recognizes such a document only if a client was competent to sign it.
Ronnie Dragoo was transferred last week to the Regency at Deaconess in Clifton Heights, where two doctors agreed April 3 to withdraw life support and sign a do-not-resuscitate order, Thiele said.
The respirator and feeding tube were removed April 6, Cindy Dragoo said. It’s unknown how long her brother might live.
“It sounds terrible, but it’s what I wanted,” Thiele said. “It is terrible. This should never happen. No human being should go through this.”
From the Cincinnati Enquirer:
