BC-MA–Life Support,0254

Meeting fails to produce deal for Mass. General patient on life support

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BOSTON (AP) – A two-hour meeting with a judge failed to yield a deal between Massachusetts General Hospital and a woman fighting to keep her 79-year-old mother on life support at the hospital.

In a joint statement after the closed-door meeting, lawyers for the hospital and for Barbara Howe, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease and has been on a ventilator since 1997, said they are taking “private measures” to resolve the dispute and plan to return to court March 11.

In the meantime, the statement added, both sides have agreed to refrain from publicly discussing the case.

David Aptaker, one of Howe’s lawyers, suggested that his client will remain on life support at Mass. General until the lawyers meet again next month with Suffolk Probate and Family Court Judge John Smoot.

“The fact that we’re coming back (to court) speaks for itself,” Aptaker said.

Mass. General officials had planned to take Howe off life support Wednesday, saying she is “suffering significantly and needlessly” with advanced-stage lateral sclerosis, an incurable muscle condition.

But the hospital suspended those plans Tuesday after Howe’s daughter, Carol Carvitt, filed a last-minute petition to keep her mother hooked up to the ventilator.

Carvitt says her mother, a former resident of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, is mentally alert even though she cannot speak or eat and can barely move.

AP-ES-02-25-05 1735EST