SAN FRANCISCO — The 13-year-old California girl who was declared brain dead after suffering complications from sleep apnea surgery is being cared for at a facility that shares her family’s belief that she still is alive, her uncle said Monday.
Jahi McMath’s family and their lawyer would not disclose where the 8th grader was taken on Sunday night after a battle to prevent Children’s Hospital Oakland from removing her from the breathing machine that has kept her heart beating for 28 days.
The uncle, Omari Sealey, told reporters Monday that Jahi travelled by ground and that there were no complications in the transfer, suggesting she may still be in California. Nurses and doctors are working to stabilize her with intravenous antibiotics, minerals and supplements while she remains on the ventilator, but her condition is too precarious for additional measures, lawyer Christopher Dolan said.
The new facility has “been very welcoming with open arms. They have beliefs just like ours,” Sealey said. “They believe as we do...It’s a place where she is going to get the treatment she deserves.”
The nearly $50,000 in private donations the family has raised since taking the case public helped cover the carefully choreographed handoff to the critical care team and transportation to the new location, Sealey said. The facility, where Jahi is expected to remain for some time, is run by a charitable organization that so far hasn’t sought payment, Dolan said.
Both men refused to name the facility or reveal where it was located, saying they wanted to prevent staff members and the families of other patients from being harassed.
While the move ends what had been a very public and tense fight with the hospital, it also brings new challenges: caring for a patient whom three doctors have said is legally dead because there is no blood flow or electrical activity in either her cerebrum or the brain stem that controls breathing.