Dr. Jessica Zitter, a Bay Area-based physician practicing critical and palliative care, said the family might not find a physician anywhere to do the procedures it seeks.
"Most hospitals would not treat a brain-dead patient; most private doctors would not treat a brain-dead patient," Zitter said.
A health care ethics expert said the hospital is following state law, which equates brain death with end of life.
"It's a pretty rare situation," said Ryan Holmes, a bioethicist with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. He said he has never heard of a patient declared brain-dead transferred to a long-term care facility.
"In most cases, while it's a devastating diagnosis, people understand there's not anything that can be done when they determine the patient's brain is not functioning.
[...]
A call to the Coroner's Office on Friday was not immediately returned, but Dolan said that office had greenlighted a transfer if a facility would accept her.
Tracheotomies and the insertion of gastric tubes are procedures done largely to ease the task of providers, Holmes said, and are common for patients discharged to long-term facilities. However, a patient could be moved without those procedures being done, he said.
"We're going to do everything we can to move her," Jahi's uncle Omari Sealey said Friday. "We're going to see what we can do to get around the procedure."
The position of Children's Hospital Oakland is what would be expected from any other facility, Zitter and Holmes said.
"Generally, when someone is determined to be dead, all remaining interventions are halted," Holmes said, adding Jahi's case is unique in that a judge intervened extending her time hooked to life support machines until Monday evening.
"I think the whole case is dangerous in terms of precedent. I think that's probably a concern for the hospital," Holmes said. "We're able to do so much in medicine, and there are times when maybe we shouldn't do as much."
As many patients wind up brain-dead, Jahi's case could create future problems, he said."If you don't set hard lines, it's hard to reestablish those hard lines later," Holmes said. "The hospital is in the unfortunate position that any time they set those standards, it can be perceived as cold and unsympathetic, and it's a very hard place to be put in."