Won the right to appeal…worried about outcome (Archie Battersbee)

[WhatsHoppening]

Firstly I can’t imagine the parents pain and I understand they are deeply grieving and are desperate. They’ve been led on by the Christian charity lawyers and are very vulnerable. I also understand the want to fight to the death for your child even if I disagree with it personally.

As a HCP I am very concerned if the next court case rules in favour of the family and to continue to keep the poor child ventilated/continuing intervention. My perspective as well as anyone I know in healthcare understands he is brain dead and deteriorating. Caring for a patient like that would be traumatic for the staff although of course that’s not the point.

If we allow families to ‘choose’ whether people continue to be ventilated against medical advice this sets a dangerous precedent. We need to able to trust health care professionals and, in my opinion, the focus should have been supporting the family emotionally rather than starting a ‘fight’ and ‘purple wave’. It costs hundreds and thousands of NHS money to keep this poor child ‘breathing’ and more in lawyers fees. You can’t keep brain dead people alive like a living shrine because you’ll be sad if they die. I so hope the court agrees with the original ruling and the family get the counselling and support they need.

If parts of his brain are dead, rotting and falling into his spine, there is no chance he will improve. Once brain tissue is dead there is no going back.

This little boy has a brain with zero blood supply that has rotted. Some of his brain has fallen down in pieces into his spinal cord. Those pieces now sit in the lumbar region of his spine. It is the most graphic description of coning I have ever read

That is what stands out for me. Sometimes you just have to describe the gruesome details, and the coning is exactly that.

I have since read about someone who was brain stem dead, and ventilated for 20 years. When they "died" and had an autopsy, their brain was basically a hard rock.

I believe something similar happened to Bobbi Cristina - Whitney Houston’s daughter? Her body began to rot - specifically her gut, but the family insisted she remain ventilated. Unpleasant for everyone.

I have no doubt the court will determine it's in the child's best interests to let him go.

@Rabbitholedigger Thank you for posting the legal judgement.

As @AgathaMystery says it is clearly written. It is worth reading gain to establish factual content & insight into the background of this complex sad case.

Absolutely no one has mocked them or discriminated against them.

I mean this in the kindest way but how is this possibly a good outcome? Being ventilated indefinitely is no quality of life for a patient. Initially the family may get financial support from fundraising to pay for this but that will tailor off as people sadly lose interest and then what happens? They withdraw care because they can’t afford it, likely going into huge amount of debt before then?
The priority is and always should be the patient/child in this instance and what is best for them. Having read the posts of those with a law background I know see the value in this going through the courts so thank you for this perspective.
For those offended by this post there is no mocking here or criticism of the family. It’s important to be able to discuss challenging topics and actually allow people to raise the perspective of all sides so hopefully we can all see where the different viewpoints are coming from. He is/was a lovely boy and I can see how they would never want to let go. I can’t imagine the pain of reading the graphic description of the brain necrosis and I don’t blame his mother for denying this

Keeping a child alive for your own benefit is disgusting. No good or decent parent would do it. It's harsh but sometimes you need to accept medical reality and let them go.

Exactly this. Doctors do get things wrong.

When Archie dies, the public will have trust in the brain death tests and another case like this will be far less likely for a while. But a case like this probably is needed from time to time so that people know they are allowed to challenge on behalf of their child.

Archie’s mum will know she did all she possibly could and that will help her grieving process.

Regarding the staff who will be “traumatised” by looking after him - no, the won’t be, unless they’re totally unsuited to their job.

I so wish there was a ❤️ button I could add to posts like this. Thank you x

.
Nonsense. Disagreeing with one form of belief is not discriminating against it.

Regarding the staff who will be “traumatised” by looking after him - no, the won’t be, unless they’re totally unsuited to their job.

I think the4re is a difference between, on the one hand, nursing someone who has even a tiny hope of recovery or helping them to a peaceful death; and, on the other hand, spending week after week nursing someone you can see has died and whose body is decaying, with their relatives challenging suspiciously everything you do and publicly accusing you of starving him etc.

When Archie dies, the public will have trust in the brain death tests and another case like this will be far less likely for a while

the new appeal isn’t on the brain stem death tests though, that seems to be have abandoned. It’s on whether Archie’s best interests were addressed by the High Court.

So you would rather do something that benefits you but is of absolutely no benefit to your child? What sort of parent does that? This child's body is literally starting to rot away yet his parents would rather put their own emotions over their child! I understand they are desperately unhappy but isnt it a parents job to put the child first? They are wilfully choosing to ignore medical facts! The people i feel sorry for in all of this is Archie and all the staff caring for him.

I think winning the appeal at least gives them time to accept the reality or at least give them some closure when the inevitable happens so when the mum questions herself in the future, she will know she did everything in her power despite the obvious, obviously.

"the new appeal isn’t on the brain stem death tests though, that seems to be have abandoned. It’s on whether Archie’s best interests were addressed by the High Court"

I don't understand this? Is this lawyers just playing the system?

I don't understand this? Is this lawyers just playing the system?

I don’t either. Someone is trying to explain it to me on the other thread though

Having now watched more of the appeal, it seems the court of appeal granted permission on 5 additional grounds.

when a party to litigation wants to appeal a decision, they have two bites at the cherry - they ask the court who has made the decision they want to appeal (here, the high court), and then if they don’t get it, they can ask the court they would appeal to (here, the court of appeal).

the high court only granted permission on one ground, namely the burden of proof. However the court of appeal granted permission on additional grounds, including whether or not the court approached the best interests test properly. So that’s how they were allowed to focus on the best interests, that given the brain stem test couldn’t be done, the court should have looked at best interests first.

How much time do they need? They've had three months so far during which their child has been using an intensive care bed that might have saved another child. That is three months more than most people in that situation get.

Having now watched more of the appeal, it seems the court of appeal granted permission on 5 additional grounds.

That's what I said upthread.

Ok sorry. I’ve been on the thread but obviously missed some posts by re starting reading at the wrong place this morning. I was just responding to the most recent messages.

I’ve asked the same question on the other thread, but does that mean that once “best interests” has been addressed, they can then swerve back to other points?

It would have been useful to have neuroimaging/blood flow studies legally recognised. They’re much more sophisticated and it solves the problem of theoretical “false positive” results in patients who are too dead to have a peripheral nerve response

I know the lawyers are going for the regious grounds but hollie stood outside court yuesterday and siad the doctors were wrong and was disgusted how they just wanted to stop treatment and shes been proved right by the appeal

shes not basing her decision on religion at all she didnt even mention it

I’ve asked the same question on the other thread, but does that mean that once “best interests” has been addressed, they can then swerve back to other points?

or is it because “best interest” means the brain death tests can be negated.

with CG and AE neither were brain dead, the argument for withdrawing care was best interest- it was in the best interest of both children to let them die peacefully, as there was no possibility of any improvement, and keeping them alive to throw whatever long shot clinical trial at them was prolonging suffering.

if the same can be shown in this case- that even if brain death can’t be demonstrated clinically, it is not in the best interest of Archie to be kept “alive” indefinitely. That would mean they only need to show that any treatment is futile and risks harm.

I don’t think the Court of Appeal wanted to rule on a new standard for testing brain death. There is a code of practice and accepted test for brain death which could not be used on Archie because he did not pass a peripheral nerve test.

I suspect the court would have looked for any way out of making a new standard for brain death given the time this would have taken. Additionally it would have definitely been appealable to the Supreme Court. Courts do not like to make additions to the law - especially when best interests was not fully explored by the High Court. Making new law is difficult and open to a lot of criticism. Now they have drafted in Justice Hayden for July 11, who has experience in best interests cases - he was the judge in the Evans case - and he can wrap this up without the need for new law.