022574 hs Hospital defies court; baby dies

PORTLAND, Maine - Born s e v e r e I y malformed two weeks ago, David Patrick Houle died Sunday, despite a judge's decree that be should survive.

The baby, whose. parents told his doctor and the hospital not to perform an operation that might have saved his life, died at the Maine Medical Center Sunday morning despite court-ordered emergency surgery done Feb. 15.

BUT David Patrick Houle will live on in the textbooks of medical law. For this is one of the few times that hospitals and doctors have challenged legally the decision of a parent to refuse to allow corrective, life-saving surgery on a severely malformed or mentally retarded child.

In this case, Maine's Superior Court Judge David G.Roberts ruled "at the moment of
live birth there does exist a human being entitled to the 'fullest protection of the law.The most basic right enjoyed by every human being is the right to life itself."

The decision of the Maine Medical Center to seek court action and Judge Roberts' ruling already have split the medical community here.

Some doctors say privately that the severely malformed child should have been allowed to die quietly in a corner of the nursery the way thousands of other retarded and deformed newborns are allowed to die in hospitals all over the country.

ONE EXPERT in medical ethics, Dr. Andre E. Hellegers, director of the Joseph and Rose Kennedy I n s t i t u t e for the Study of Human  reproduction and Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical School in Washington, feared that Judge Roberts' decision will cause a "backlash" among doctors and hospitals that will mean that newborns who should be saved will be allowed to die.

"Baby Boy Houle" was born Feb. 9 to Air Force recruiting Sgt. Robert H. T. Houle and his wife. Lorraine, a quiet couple in their late 20's who live in nearby Westbrook.

The baby was born with his entire left side malformed. He had no left eye, rudimentary left ear without an ear canal, and a malformed left thumb. Some of his vertebrae were not fused.

MOREOVER. in what many doctors consider a natural selection process to assure survival of only the fittest, there was an opening in the tube connecting the baby's windpipe and his stomach. known medically as a tracheal esopliageal fistula. This means that the baby not only could not be fed by mouth, but also that air leaked into the stomach in stead of going to the lungs,. and fluid from the stomach pushed up into the lungs.

This situation can be corrected surgically with a relatively simple operation.

But looking toward the future life of the child, Dr. Martin A. Barron Jr. swore in an affidavit to the court, Sgt. Houle ordered him a day after the baby was born not to perform the operation and to stop the Intravenous feeding that was keeping the baby alive.

THE DOCTOR said the baby could live only three days without the feedings.

Houle later denied saying the feedings should stop, but neither he nor his lawyer challenged the doctor's statement in court.

"Some people are calling us monsters because of this and others are very sympathetic," Houle said.