Jahi McMath Kept on Life Support: Family Serves 'Cease and Desist Letter' to Hospital, Believes in Power of Prayer
The family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath won the right to keep their loved one on life support despite a hospital's initial insistence that she be removed from the support. The family is banding together and asking for prayers for Jahi, fully believing that God can perform a miracle and Jahi can wake up.
"I don't want her off life support because I really feel like she can wake up," Naliah Winkfield, Jahi's mother, told CNN's Piers Morgan. "I feel like it's just been a rough week for her and, if they just give her some more time, then she'll be able to wake up."
The family and Children's Hospital in Oakland were at odds over removing the teen from life support after she suffered complications from a routine tonsillectomy. Jahi went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced brain dead, which led officials at the hospital to suggest, then order, that she be removed from the machines. Yesterday doctors performed one more EEG before preparing to remove Jahi from life support.
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Her family was able to retain a lawyer and served the hospital with a cease and desist letter; Jahi will now be kept on the ventilator as long as the family wants. And the family is reaching out, asking for prayers around the world and holding onto their belief that God can perform a miracle and wake Jahi.
"We're not on doctor's time anymore, we're on God's time, providing us more time to get together and pray," Omar Sealey, Jahi's uncle, told KTVU. "Our faith is so strong that we don't even think about the possibility of death. We believe with all the prayers from everyone around the world and the prayers with our family that she will wake up, that she will heal completely. We are asking everyone across the world to pray with us."
A Facebook page in support of Jahi and her family has so far gathered over 3,000 "likes" and is filled with prayers and encouragement for the family as they go through this tough time.
