An Anoka County judge has barred Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids from taking a COVID-19 patient off his ventilator against his wife’s wishes.
In court documents filed this week, Anne Quiner said the hospital intends “to take actions on Thursday January 13, 2022 that will end my husband’s life.”
“These actions include turning off his ventilator,” she said. “I have advised the doctors that I vehemently disagree with this action and do not want my husband’s ventilator turned off.”
Anne’s attorney, Thomas Renz, told The Stew Peters Show that Scott Quiner is unconscious but his “vitals are apparently stable.”
“This guy is not dying but yet they want to kill him. We have a hospital that hired a law firm to argue that they have the right to murder somebody,” Renz said.
According to Renz, the hospital was set to pull the plug around noon Thursday. Anoka County Judge Jennifer Stanfield prevented that from happening, seemingly just in the nick of time.
A temporary restraining order filed just before noon will prevent the hospital from turning off Scott’s ventilator until Feb. 11, when the parties will convene for a hearing.
Marjorie Holsten, another attorney helping with the case, described the restraining order as a victory, but a “temporary victory,” since the hospital has hired the Fredrikson & Byron law firm to fight Anne in court. The hospital’s attorneys have argued that Anne’s “position is not supported by medical science,” claiming that Mercy Hospital has “the authority to discontinue Mr. Quiner’s ventilator and proceed with his medical care plan.”
Anne has given the hospital permission to try a variety of alternative treatments, yet they have ostensibly rejected each of them.
“So basically [the hospital] said, ‘Okay, if you do not put him on comfort care or sign [a do-not-resuscitate order], we are not doing anything further,” she told conservative host Stew Peters Wednesday night. “Then they said, ‘If you do sign the comfort care and the DNR, then we will start removing the paralytic and the MRSA drugs off of him.’ And I said I’m not doing that. So the next morning when I went in, they had already started turning down the paralytic and MRSA drugs on him.”
Clipped audio of phone conversations Quiner had with hospital staff reveal her fruitless attempts at getting Mercy Hospital to consider some of her proposed treatment options. Their justification is that “COVID pneumonia” has wrecked Scott’s lungs beyond the point of recovery, meaning the proposed treatments won’t help.
“How about some nutrition to get him stronger, you know? ‘Oh, he is!’ Well, that’s not enough nutrition for a person that’s laying on a bed, I’m sorry,” she says in one of those conversations. “There are other things you guys need to do on your protocols to help people survive through COVID and not just medicate them with more drugs.”
“Mam, unfortunately, if we could turn back time and he had gotten the vaccine, then he wouldn’t be in this … ,” a hospital worker replies before being cut off.
Quiner is still looking for a doctor willing to treat her husband or prescribe him ivermectin, vitamin C or D, and any other alternative yet highly effective COVID treatments. It’s unclear if she will be able to have Scott transferred before the Feb. 11 hearing.
“You have rights, and Scott has rights,” Peters told her. “You have the right to try. You have the right to have him discharged against medical advice. This is not a jail or a lock-up facility. He hasn’t committed a crime. He’s not in custody. And you’re an American who’s afforded specific rights by the Constitution of the United States.”
The community has rallied around the Quiner family and launched a GoFundMe to help with medical and legal costs.
Evan Stambaugh
Evan Stambaugh is a freelance writer who had previously been a sports blogger. He has a BA in theology and an MA in philosophy.
