CALL TO ACTION - American Hero Fights for his Life!

from Texas Right to Life

In November, Methodist Hospital delivered a letter to the mother of David Christopher Dunn, “Chris,” confirming plans to remove and withdraw medical treatment at the end of ten days. Because Chris is intermittently conscious due to sedation, his mother is acting as his Medical Power of Attorney. However, Methodist has invoked the statutory process found in the Texas Advanced Directives Act (TADA-Chapter 166.046 of the Health & Safety Code), which allows the hospital to override medical directives of a patient and provide only ten days’ notice before withdrawing life-sustaining treatment. Dunn’s only recourse is to find another facility that will offer him an ICU bed – a daunting task on a rushed time frame for anyone, but even more so for patients without insurance such as Chris.

Chris is an American hero, who has served his community and the nation as an EMT, a police dispatcher, a Harris County Sheriff, and a Homeland Security employee. Chris even fought Somali pirates as part of a security team. Rather than protecting Chris’s Right to Life, the state of Texas is rewarding his lifetime of selfless service by relinquishing him to a hospital panel who have judged his quality of life too low to merit continued treatment.

Tragically, this is the way countless Texans have lived out their final days since 1999, when TADA unconstitutionally bestowed on healthcare facilities authority over Life and death. Doctors who decide their patients’ cases are “futile” – regardless of their motive or reasons for doing so – hold the power to remove patients from medical treatment or to issue a Do-Not-Resuscitate order on the patient, even if such action is against the expressed wishes of the patient or his surrogate. If the patient or his surrogate cannot find a transfer facility willing to take the patient within that ten-day period, there is no appellate process for the decision of the hospital panel. In other words, hospital panels have the right to decide which medically vulnerable Texans live and die.

Texas Right to Life is assisting Chris’s family in navigating this legal labyrinth to ensure that he continues to receive care.

Media outlets in Houston and around the country are reporting on Chris' fight to live.

Please take a few moments to watch the video of Chris below.  

Please Help Chris See Christmas!  

Join with Texas Right to Life and send a message to the hospital telling them Chris deserves to LIVE!  Use  the button below to send your message.