Father gives up fight to keep baby alive
Child's ventilator will be turned off after court battle with mother is resolved
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Independent Minds
A seriously ill baby, whose parents disagreed about his medical care, will have his ventilator switched off after the father withdrew his objection to allow doctors to end his son's life.
The father told a judge that he had given his consent after he was sure that every possible medical avenue to help his son had been fully explored. The one-year-old, known as Baby RB for legal reasons, was born with a rare genetic muscle condition that makes independent breathing impossible.
Hospital paediatricians, supported by the boy's mother, had argued that RB's illness meant he could expect a "miserable, sad and pitiful existence" – even if tracheotomy surgery to relieve his breathing difficulties allowed him to leave the hospital. The father had disagreed, favouring an attempt to bring the boy home.
Yesterday Mr Justice McFarlane said that both parents, who were in tears as the judge read out his ruling, now shared the same opinion on the treatment of their child. In his ruling the judge said the choices facing the future care of RB were "stark". He said: "One [option] is for his time on the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit to end in a planned way, with the administration of a large dose of sedative, the removal of the ventilation tube and his consequent death. The other is to contemplate his discharge from hospital on home ventilation after a tracheotomy."
The judge welcomed the final decision, describing it as a "sad, but in my view inevitable outcome". He said: "From the moment of the baby's birth it was apparent he was profoundly unwell." Mr Justice McFarlane said it would now be lawful to withdraw life support from the child. He paid tribute to the parents, who had since separated, but who he said had acted in an exemplary manner.
Explaining the difficulties such decisions posed to the court, the judge added: "It is, I suspect, impossible for those of us to whom such an event has not happened to do more than guess at the impact of it upon these two young parents. In one moment all of the hopes and dreams that they will have had for their expected baby will have been dashed and replaced with a life characterised by worry, stress, exhaustion, confusion and no doubt great sadness."
A statement issued by lawyers representing RB's parents and the hospital trust said: "Although RB's parents separated, they have always been united in wanting the best possible care for their son so that he may have the very best possible quality of life. RB's parents would now wish to spend what little time remains with their beloved son."
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Comments
However, one can help future parents and children in similar circumstances by keeping the facts associated with this happening in mind.
In future parents and relatives need to be educated about the need to avoid prolonging the agony for children, parents and relatives in similar situations. It would be better all round to - more or less - let nature take its course in such situations and only medically intervene to ease pain and administer palliative care. Invasive medical care aimed solely at prolonging life at all costs generally does not benefit the patient or the loving relatives. It may only benefit the suppliers of certain medical equipment, certain paramedic researcher and the odd individual hoping to publish an article in the Journal of Medical God Knows What. And the latter objectives do not justify the pain patients and relatives go through or the public funds spent on such "treatments". The general public needs to be educated about such matters as a matter of course and not just the relatives to whom such things happen to occur because by then it will be too late. It is not really practical to expect parents and relatives to think rationally in such tragic, emotional circumstances even if they have been pre-trained for such eventualities, let alone if the media keeps bombarding them with glorifications of paramedics and relatives who attempt to prolong life at all cost and under all circumstances. At least this article has not done that.