Steps to keep girl alive are authorized

Haleigh Poutre, the brain-damaged girl whose fate has been debated in the highest levels of state government, will receive emergency life-saving measures from hospital staff if her heart or lungs stop working.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services, which has custody of Haleigh, said yesterday that among its revised requests to the courts last week was that the agency no longer sought to enforce a ''do not resuscitate" order.

That order told doctors not to begin emergency measures to save the 11-year-old Westfield girl's life if she went into cardiac or respiratory failure. DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro said the agency no longer seeks to have that order go into effect and has suspended plans to withdraw life support, including her feeding tube.

''There's a stay on everything," Monteiro said.

Last Wednesday, a day after winning approval by the state's highest court to withdraw life support, the agency disclosed that Haleigh's condition had improved, that she had begun to breathe on her own and showed increased responsiveness.

Doctors at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, where Haleigh has been in a vegetative state since being beaten allegedly by her adoptive mother and stepfather, told them last fall she was ''virtually brain dead" with no hope for recovery.

DSS sought court approval for the ''do not resuscitate" order on Sept. 19, eight days after Haleigh was hospitalized with brain stem injuries and multiple bruises.

DSS Commissioner Harry Spence may announce as early as today the names of top doctors and biomedical ethicists who will give a thorough second opinion on Haleigh's condition and prognosis. He said updated medical assessments will help the agency determine what to recommend to Juvenile Court Judge James G. Collins of Holyoke, who will ultimately decide whether end-of-life measures should be taken for Haleigh.

Spence has acknowledged that despite more than a dozen reports of neglect and abuse of Haleigh, DSS staffers had believed the girl had a mental disorder that caused her to injure herself. He said his staff had worked conscientiously on Haleigh's case, but was fooled by the couple who cared for her. He also said that the agency sought to withdraw life support based on the best medical advice it had at the time.

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.