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.

CPR has a lot to answer for, too. There’s more to life than a heartbeat - I didn’t know you could ventilate a corpse, but that’s what’s happening in the Whitechapel. How can any of this help anyone?

I obviously have no medical experience but I assume they didn’t ventilate a corpse.

I assume that the brain scans weren't carried out at the point of resuscitation.

It's usually afterwards that the family is informed that it's hopeless.

CPR has been successful in many cases.

Re Archie's organs, would they usable considering they he has been functioning artificially.

Ditto. I wonder if the poster who read that has actually read the combined 70 odd pages of both judgements issued by the high Court? They make for some grim reading, but leave you in no doubt that tragically Archie will never recover. He is already dead. I felt that both judges were compassionate and child-centered in their decision making.

What the family aren't saying though is his brain is deteriorating and falling down his spine. Are they waiting until there is nothing left of his brain in his head? There's no blood going into his brain so he is brain dead.