Stephanie Istvam was a 63 year old woman from Washington State who went to the hospital to seek treatment due to shortness of breath on November 26, 2021.  She tested positive for Covid and was admitted to the hospital.  Julie, her daughter, demanded that she not be administered Remdesivir nor be put on the ventilator.  From that moment, it became an uphill battle for Julie and her family to try and save Stephanie.

Water and nutrition were denied, and sedatives administered.  There were many confrontations with the medical staff and Julie begging for the “Right to Try” alternative protocols.  Stephanie was given morphine, which she was allergic to, numerous times.  The family even requested a welfare check by the Arlington Police Department because of the lies and lack of communication by the doctors and nurses. Therefore, the family began their quest to take Stephanie home against medical advice.

“They blew out my mom’s lungs with 90 liters per minute of high flow oxygen, starved, dehydrated her and then put her on a respiratory depressant after I told them not to and I was the POA.”

Julie contacted several government officials and the Frontline Doctors requesting assistance for critical care transport to move her mother from the hospital to her brother’s home for hospice care.  Her father was even physically removed from his wife’s bedside.  On what should have been a welcoming home, Stephanie passed away on the transport gurney in her son’s living room December 11, 2021.