Girl with Damage to Brain is Sent to Rehab Center
Patricia Wen
Boston Globe
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Springfield, Massachusetts (US):
Haleigh Poutre, the brain-damaged girl at the center of a passionate end-of-life debate, was transferred yesterday from a pediatric intensive-care unit to a Brighton rehabilitation center, two days after the state's top child-protection official saw her pick up a Curious George stuffed animal and a yellow duck on command. '
'It's her incredible will to live," said Harry Spence, commissioner of the state Department of Social Services, which has had custody of the 11-year-old girl since she was brought, badly beaten, to a hospital last September and lapsed into a coma.
Spence, who has been criticized for seeking to remove her life support as soon as eight days after her hospitalization, said he visited Haleigh for the first time ''out of some sense of responsibility."
He said he wanted to see the girl whose fate he will help determine. ''I needed to put myself in the place of a parent," he said.
Jan 27, 2006
Patricia Wen
Boston Globe
_________
Springfield, Massachusetts (US):
Haleigh Poutre, the brain-damaged girl at the center of a passionate end-of-life debate, was transferred yesterday from a pediatric intensive-care unit to a Brighton rehabilitation center, two days after the state's top child-protection official saw her pick up a Curious George stuffed animal and a yellow duck on command. '
'It's her incredible will to live," said Harry Spence, commissioner of the state Department of Social Services, which has had custody of the 11-year-old girl since she was brought, badly beaten, to a hospital last September and lapsed into a coma.
Spence, who has been criticized for seeking to remove her life support as soon as eight days after her hospitalization, said he visited Haleigh for the first time ''out of some sense of responsibility."
He said he wanted to see the girl whose fate he will help determine. ''I needed to put myself in the place of a parent," he said.
Jan 27, 2006
