Three weeks after being declared brain dead, the family of 13-year old Jahi McMath continues to assert that their child is still alive and there remains hope that she will recover from her condition.  The hospital where McMath currently remains, Children’s Hospital Oakland, maintains that Jahi suffered “whole brain death,” defined as a complete cessation of all brain activity, and that she is no longer actually alive.  The hospital policy prohibits procedures on “deceased bodies” and as a result the hospital has refused to perform any further procedures for McMath.

McMath entered Children’s Hospital Oakland on December 12, 2013 for a tonsillectomy that was expected to be complex.  She suffered bleeding and extended cardiac arrest during the procedure and was declared brain dead shortly afterwards.

The family insists that she is still responsive to their voices and touch and wish to transfer her to a facility where she can be kept alive in the hope that she might recover.  The hospital refuses to perform the necessary insertion of feeding and breathing tubes to enable travel, and has asserted that the family can find no physician willing to do so, either.

On January 3^rd, 2014, a Federal Magistrate was assigned to mediate the case and seek a solution.  The family has secured the services of a facility in New York and an air ambulance to transport their daughter, but has not yet produced a physician willing to perform the necessary intubations.  A court order is keeping McMath on a ventilator until January 7^th.