The Political Hat

     Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

     The focus this time: Medicinal executioner offers to reprieve.

     First, a little mood music:

     Carrying on…

     The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) has often overruled parents and forcibly let babies die horrible deaths. Now, even an adult in their right mind can be forced to die by the “vaunted” NHS.

“[A]conscious and capable 19-year-old patient, referred to in legal documents as “ST,” with an apparent terminal disease has been told by a court that she can’t decide to continue life-extending treatment after the hospital sued to be able to move her to palliative care against her will. From the legal ruling involving the National Health Service Trust (my emphasis added):

“‘The Trust’s case is that ST is “actively dying”. It became clear during the course of the oral evidence I heard from Dr A, the consultant leading her care on the ITU, that this assessment does not mean that her death is necessarily imminent. She may have weeks or even months to live. The exact prognosis is uncertain. What is clear from clinical observation is that she has progressive respiratory failure with episodes of acute exacerbation resulting in breathlessness, distress and agitation. The current care plan is based upon the withdrawal of haemodialysis although ventilation will continue.’

“ST is aware of this but wants to keep fighting for her life. Again, from the ruling, by the justice presiding over the case:

“‘Despite all the difficulties which currently confront her, ST is able to communicate reasonably well with her doctors with assistance from her mother and, on occasion, speech therapists. Over the course of the last week she has engaged in two separate capacity assessments. I heard evidence from two consultant psychiatrists whose conclusions in relation to her capacity in both domains are set out in full written reports. . . .

“‘She has been described by those who know and love her as “a fighter”. That is how she sees herself. At the heart of the issues in this case is what ST and her family perceive to be a ray of hope in the form of an experimental nucleoside treatment outside the United Kingdom which might offer her hope of an improved quality of life, albeit a life which is likely to end prematurely in terms of a normal life expectancy. She has told her doctors that she wants to do everything she can to extend her life. She said to Dr C, one of the psychiatrists who visited her last week, “This is my wish. I want to die trying to live. We have to try everything”. [Court’s emphasis] Whilst she recognises that she may not benefit from further treatment, she is resistant to any attempt to move to a regime of palliative care because she wants to stay alive long enough to be able to travel to Canada or North America where there is at least the prospect that she may be accepted as part of a clinical trial. . . .

“‘ST is well aware that she has been offered a very poor prognosis by her doctors. She acknowledges that they have told her that she will die but she does not believe them. She points to her recovery from previous life-threatening episodes whilst she has been a patient at the intensive care unit. She believes she has the resilience and the strength to stay alive for long enough to undergo treatment abroad and she wishes the court to acknowledge her right to make that decision for herself.’

“If patient autonomy is to mean anything, why object? Because even though two psychiatrists told the court that ST has decision-making capacity, the court ruled that she doesn’t because she won’t accept that there is no hope”

Continue reading →

Tweet