Supporters want Baby Joseph sent home

Showing support for the family, dozens turned out Saturday to rally beside Moe Maraachli to protest LHSC's refusal to perform a tracheotomy on Maraachli's young son before releasing him into his family's care.

Baby Joseph is dying. On this both the Canadian hospital and Baby Joseph's parents agree. The dispute arises as to where the infant will die. Will it be in the hospital or at home?

Saturday dozens of supporters protested the hospital's refusal to perform a tracheotomy on the little boy before sending him home to face certain death.

Moe Maraachli is Baby Joseph's dad.

The 13-month-old son of Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader of Windsor Ontario, known to the world as Baby Joseph, was admitted to Victoria Hospital in London Ontario last October. 

The family was on the way home from Toronto, not quite halfway to Windsor, when their infant son developed life-threatening breathing difficulties. They rushed the boy to emergency in Ingersoll and from there he was taken to the London Health Sciences Centre's pediatric critical care unit. 

It is now March and the little boy is still being cared for in the Southwestern Ontario hospital. The doctors have determined he is dying of the same progressive neurodegenerative disease that claimed his sister, Zina, eight years ago. 

The doctors would like to remove the breathing tube keeping the little boy alive. His parents want the doctors to perform a tracheotomy and let them take their son home to die, as was done with Joseph's sister. She lived six months with a tracheotomy before succumbing to the fatal genetic disease.

For more on this story see the Digital Journal post.

Protesters supporting the parents of Baby Joseph lined Commissioners Road and Wellington Road at the busy intersection near the large hospital complex.