This is great news for Baby Joseph and his family! From FoxNews:
The baby who was hours from being pulled off life support at his Canadian hospital has been rescued by the national director of Priests for Life and taken to the U.S. for treatment.
Thirteen-month-old Joseph Maraachli, who is currently kept alive by a respirator and was recently denied a transfer to a Michigan hospital to undergo a tracheotomy, arrived in the U.S. early Monday morning with Fr. Frank Pavone and other Priests for Life staff.
“Priests for Life staff toiled through the night for many nights, working in concert with dozens of people to make this possible,” Father Pavone said in a statement. “Now that we have won the battle against the medical bureaucracy in Canada, the real work of saving Baby Joseph can begin.”
Joseph is at to SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, Mo., a non-profit health-care facility open to all children in need of medical care.
Here are a few Twitter updates from Fr. Pavone very early this morning:
He then tweeted these two pictures of himself with Baby Joseph and the boy’s father (click to enlarge):
Thanks be to God for Priests for Life, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, whom I think has also been involved behind the scenes. Thank God also for little Joseph’s dedicated parents for not giving up on their son when he needs them the most and, of course, for the continued prayers of countless others!
For some background on Baby Joseph see my previous posts here and here and check out the Save baby Joseph Facebook page where they have been keeping regular updates on his condition and his case.
See more pictures of Baby Joseph’s transfer on the Priests for Life website here along with this press release.
On a related note, see Wesley Smith’s post on how the Alliance Defense Fund has helped Rachael Nyirahaabiyambere and others in situations similar to Baby Joseph: Alliance Defense Fund Saves Lives of the Medically Vulnerable
2 Comments on “Baby Joseph Transferred to St. Louis Hospital!”
I am rejoicing that baby Joseph will get the care he needs so desperately and that his family has won this part of a grueling, sad battle.
I am, however, getting a bit troubled by all the publicity that is being promoted by Fr Pavone for himself and his organization at this point. Why does he need to have picture’s of himself published everywhere with this little boy? So many other worked to help the family, especially the Franciscan Brother’s for Peace, yet no pictures of them w/ the family? Is this a fundraiser for Priests for Life?
It just smacks of the priest celebrity status and that is a problem in our church right now.
@Lill: You might appreciate knowing that there were major errors of fact around “all the publicity… promoted by Fr Pavone for himself and his organization”:
Pavone and PFL in actual fact had absolutely nothing to do with finding or ‘negotiating with’ the St. Louis hospital. In fact, neither Pavone nor PFL were even aware of the Cardinal Glennon hospital’s involvement until after the negotiations were already complete and the decision on the part of the hospital was already made final. They didn’t even know the city or even the State of the successfully negotiated hospital. Pavone/PFL simply had agreed to pay the hospital bill, and this was something for which other funding sources could have been pursued instead. The media antics that followed had nothing to do with the truth and actual history of who had in actual fact orchestrated and effected the infant’s transfer. Further, regarding PFL’s payment of the hospital bill, as things turned out they are also not really intending to (independently) donate that either, and instead are acting as a kind of bridge financier as they obtain donations earmarked for this purpose from the public while at the same time the PFL organization has very substantially increased their donators list (by about 20% just within the first couple of weeks as I was personally told by PFL during that time in which I served as the Maraachli family’s Community Organizer and manager of the rescue mission).
The truth is that all the discussions and negotiations with and about the Cardinal Glennon hospital occurred directly under the management of the Maraachli family’s Community Organizer who had assigned exclusively a single member of his advocacy network, Dr. Paul Byrne of Ohio, to the task of these negotiations. No other individuals whatsoever were involved in securing the US hospital other than at one point my bringing Joseph’s father, Moe, briefly into the discussions.