Wife who fought Mercy Hospital over ventilator says COVID-positive husband showing improvement in Texas
Jan. 21—The Buffalo, Minn., COVID-19 patient, whose wife went to court to prevent an Allina Health hospital from taking him off a ventilator, is showing signs of improvement in a Houston hospital, his wife says. Scott Quiner, tested positive in late October. His wife has said he was unvaccinated against the viral respiratory disease.
Anne Quiner has been taking her frustrations with her husband's care at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids to "the court of public opinion," her lawyer Marjorie Holsten said to the conservative talk show host Glenn Beck on Thursday.
"What we are showing the world is that Scott was near death because of the protocols used in that hospital," Holsten said. "But now he is recovering. He is getting better. We're not planning a funeral. We're planning for his release at some point."
Anne Quiner said there has been progress, but it has been slow. Her 55-year-old husband's brain function appears normal, but his lungs have been damaged and scarred. He remains on a ventilator.
"He still is very critically ill, but they are saying they're going to try everything they can do to save his life," Anne Quiner said on the conservative Stew Peters podcast on Red Voice Media. "Scott is fighting. They said he's absolutely fighting."
Allina Health has declined a request for comment. Previously, the Minneapolis health care system, which has 12 hospitals and 90 clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin, said it has every confidence in its medical professionals, that it cannot talk about Quiner's specific case and that it continues "to wish the patient and family well."
As time went on, Quiner's oxygen levels were not improving. He was put on a ventilator and transferred to the intensive care unit at Mercy Hospital on Nov. 6. He lost 30 pounds during his stay, Anne Quiner said, going from 210 pounds to 180.
According to court documents, Mercy intended to turn off her husband's ventilator at noon Jan. 13. Anne Quiner, who believed the hospital was not exploring other treatment options, was granted a restraining order by an Anoka County District Court judge and had him transferred to a Houston hospital. She has asked that the hospital not be named.
Mercy's response at the time, via the Fredrikson & Byron Law firm, was that Anne Quiner's "position is not supported by medical science or Minnesota law, and as a result, Mercy will ask the court to issue an order that Mercy has the authority to discontinue Mr. Quiner's ventilator and proceed with his medical care plan."
Anne Quiner spoke of her frustrations with Mercy Hospital's staff, telling how she and a pastor were removed from the hospital chapel by security as they prayed for her husband. She said she felt the staff had abandoned her husband.
"They were telling my family that I was being very difficult, and they were pushing them to get me to either put him in comfort care or sign the DNR (do not resuscitate)," she said on Beck's show.
Her experience in Texas has been very different, she told Peters, who has dismissed the safety of coronavirus vaccines and given a platform to pandemic conspiracy theories.
"I feel like he went from the worst doctors to the absolute best doctors in the entire United States," she said.
Hospitals in Minnesota, like others around the United States, have been overwhelmed by a combination of patients with COVID-19 — mostly unvaccinated — and those with other conditions. In the Twin Cities, about 1 percent of hospital intensive care beds were available late this week.
