14 DAY TRIAL // Joan Rivers is yet to be woken from the medically induced coma she was put in last week, after going into cardiac and respiratory arrest during a routine endoscopy at a private clinic. However, she has been moved out of the intensive care unit, her daughter Melissa says in a new statement.
The 81-year-old comedienne has been in critical condition since last week, after the botched surgery, when she was rushed to the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and doctors decided to put her into a coma to allow her vital signs to come back to normal.
Shortly afterwards, she was put on life support as well, and Melissa announced yesterday that her mother was still hooked up to the machines, still in a coma. Previous reports had claimed that she would be woken from the coma on Tuesday.
“My mother has been moved out of intensive care and into a private room where she is being kept comfortable. Thank you for your continued support,” Melissa says in a statement to the New York Daily News.
However, various media outlets point out, being moved out of the ICU to a private room means nothing in terms of Joan’s condition, of showing signs of improvement. Since she’s still comatose and hooked up to the machines, that only means that, this way, doctors and nurses will be able to better monitor her.
A doctor tells the NY Daily News that “being kept comfortable” is doctor-speak for letting nature take its course. Joan Rivers is a fighter, and the family is clearly hoping her fighter spirit will shine through.
“When we say making people comfortable, it could just mean to stop doing things that add to discomfort,” Dr. Wendy Edwards, director of palliative medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital, says. “Taking blood, frequently taking vital signs, taking them for X-rays – these things could add to a patient’s distress. That’s just good medicine: Don’t do things that are not helpful.”
Joan went to a private clinic to have an endoscopy because she’d been complaining of issues with her vocal chords for some time. There was some speculation that Melissa was looking into the circumstances surrounding the procedure, because she believed Joan should not have been treated as an outpatient, or that she suspected that Joan had been administered inappropriate medication, which triggered the stroke.
A rep for the comedienne has denied rumors that Melissa or anyone else in the family wanted to sue the clinic for the botched surgery.