Archie Battersebee case-thread 2

[whynotwhatknot]

ongoing from previous thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4573803-archie-battersbee-case?page=40

I'm a (pretty lapsed tbh) Christian and I don't personally believe that he is properly dead/gone to afterlife dead, until his whole body stops working.

But I also don't really think it matters much. He will have no consciousness, no awareness, no perception of time.

In the same way I don't think cancer patients who are given terminal sedation to ease their pain, are gone until their body stops, but from their awareness, they 'die' the final time they lost consciousness.

If someone is truly unconscious, and they die 10m later or 20y later, is the same for that person. I don't believe in purgatory, I don't think they'd be in heaven etc yet but their consciousness is just paused until their body catches up to their brain.

But each to their own. I don't really think it matters. And it doesn't alter what the right outcome is for this little boy.

It’s widely misunderstood. The training I was given as a healthcare professional is that consent cannot be given by another person, end of. I have not worked in paeds, so I don’t know how they manage it, but I imagine it’s something along the lines of as a person with parental responsibility the risks and benefits have been explained and you understood them. ‘Consent’ does not refer to signing the forms, but the process of understanding what they are going to do and what may or may not happen because of it and what that means. The forms only document the decisions, which you and the medical team have already made in the child’s best interests.

children of course, cannot consent. They do not have the understanding or insight to make a decision. Their views are increasingly taken into account with age, of course, and as they get into teenage years the health professionals make judgements as to to whether for this procedure/process/intervention today they have enough understanding of the information they are being given and the possible consequences to consent or refuse. The same with any other people of fluctuating capacity. Some days someone with dementia, say, can consent. And some days they cannot. It’s a process. Signing the form is only the documentation of that process. You can sign any form, but if the things in the document didn’t happen, aren’t correct or the person signing doesn’t have the authority to sign it, it’s meaningless.

You cannot consent on behalf of another person, you can only act in their interest as far as possible. Which is why, in cases like this, there is conflict. Otherwise the medical profession would either be able to overrule the parents, or vice versa. There would be no place for a court if someone held the power to consent on another persons behalf.

Just googled that. He should be allowed to finish dying. The picture of his mum with her thumbs up in the hospital, whilst slating the hospital and raising conspiracy theories about his care and what they are doing.. no words.

@Butitsnotfunnyisititsserious

Did you read all of the opening post?

The part about her wanting to keep him alive for money? I'm on page 1, it opened to that one, explaining who she is. Didn't actually realise there was more pages.

I have every sympathy for the family in the sense of what has happened to Archie being incredibly sad.

But the way the medical staff have been treated and spoken to by Hollie is despicable. They are doing an incredible job and a very difficult job caring for her son that she refuses to accept has gone.
It must be very distressing for them and the way she speaks about them online is disgusting.

Hollie will never accept this. But she has to allow her son to go. Let him rest. Stop thinking she knows better than the medical experts.

This is different to cases like Charlie Gard, he had a rare genetic disorder.
Archie is sadly a suicide and this is what Hollie cannot accept. It's incredibly sad.

There's a quote from today which brings it home really

[55] G is aware that nurses on the unit are finding it difficult. They feel it “upsetting to look after someone who they know has an irreversible injury and sadly, every intervention feels futile”. I was told that Archie looks like a completely different child from the one who was admitted in terms of his pallor, weight loss and muscle tone. They “all feel incredibly sad for this family.

Yes I agree that the photos of Archie should never have been made public and this should have been stopped. Not my area of law but I wonder why the Guardian couldn’t do anything about it about. Maybe it was already too late by the time the Guardian was appointed?

Online she hasn't been too harsh about the nurses at least. Just everyone else getting things wrong and lying. And the Judge being anti life and wanting him also gone...which creates a obvious reaction from the army

Such a sad situation esp with everything with the dad today. But still the comments about him needing time don't make sense when she has accepted he doesn't have time now..

Green I feel part of the issue is that we don't really know what Hollie will accept.

She's been inconsistent in her messaging depending on the audience.

It's why her AA Facebook Admins don't allow anyone to post information from the Courts - because there are a number of contradictions between her statements there and the information she posts to the Army.

It's not at all clear who is feeding the frenzy (as in H feeding the Army or vice versa) to maintain this narrative Archie is alive in any meaningful sense.

It was similar in the Charlie Guard case.

One of the issues I feel with these Facebook Army's is once they are invoked by the families you can't put the genie back in the bottle. You're all in to the bitter end with no route back to medical reality because subconsciously you know that any "out" after all you've posted/money/support raised will see those "supporters" turn on you.

I can't help reflecting back to a post on a previous thread where a poster talked about a family they knew whose child had died and had a similar online FB support group. They had expected thousands at the funeral who failed to materialise, instead saying a final farewell in a half empty church. How bloody heartbreaking to read about never mind witness.

That's the reality of these Army's. Love the online drama but when it comes to real life and REAL meaningful support they'll be long gone.

Indeed they'll just move on to the next case they dont realy care about hollie the family or archie

She's obviously not mentally well. What mother does that as her son lays there dieing. Poor Archie get's no choice in the matter and can't say he doesn't want that video out there while he's at his most vulnerable.

@BreadInCaptivity that is so true. All this rubbish of buying a ventilator and paying for nurses- this would never be allowed anyway but after the initial boom very few people would give any kind of meaningful donation long term for a stranger when objectively the whole situation is a terribly tragic farce.
I hope it doesn’t go to the EU Courts- the circus needs to end. Poor boy needs to rest in peace, the family need intensive support and counselling, the army can get back in their box and all the staff caring for him need support and a pay rise (sadly as someone who has worked in the nhs they will get neither).

Having read the other threads on google now, and seeing what is going on here, I can’t help wondering, if it had even been possible that Archie would regain consciousness, would he even have remained in her care?

Does anyone remember a case from a few years back where parents were fighting to have a DNR order removed from a severely premature baby? I think her name was Charlotte. Anyway they went back and forward to court, and she never did arrrest and as she got older her condition improved. Anyway, she was released from hospital some months later, and the last I read she had been placed in foster care.I think there was an embargo on posting news about her after that, but iirc it was the parents who actually placed her in care because they didn’t want to care fr her. Or couldn’t, can’t remember which.

It think it’s absolutely essential that there is complete transparency in this process. Conspiracy theories and political agendas thrive in the dark. Justice needs to be done in the light. The judge could see that everything was going to be exploited and twisted by the ‘Army’ who are already shielding their supporters from actual facts, and likely had an idea about their motivations. So it was essential that all the courts output should be open, publicly accessible and beyond dispute.

A lot of people are talking about being ‘legally dead’. Is there such a thing? I believe the ‘Army’ people have an agenda about that, and are using poor Archie to further their own cause (which is despicable) and that’s why the court have rightly set aside the issue, and are hearing the case on whether continued life support is in Archie’s best interests. I don’t want to go too much into this - I think it’s a valid discussion but not really appropriate now - Archie’s well-being should be the only thing that matters at the moment.

I do think his privacy is being violated. But it is being violated most severely by his parents. And as it is his parents who are able to give permission or not to his images being shared, how can the poor boy be protected?
You’d have to remove parental responsibility (someone upthread did say he had been made a ward of the court, but I don’t think that’s happened, has it?). Again, it comes down to a belief that they have his best interests at heart. They genuinely believe that he will recover, should be given treatment, and that sharing these images will raise awareness and support. That if they don’t fight he will die. That if they do he might live. If they genuinely believed that, I expect any parent would fight for treatment.

I think that cases like Archie’s are inherently unfair and the publicity is awful, but I think they must be public. They raise crucial issues for society in general to which we are entitled to have a view and to discuss, and like any tragedy to seek mutual support and absorb the horror. I had seminars on ethics and there were cases discussed there. I don’t see how they can not be.

That doesn’t mean I’m comfortable discussing anything in any terms, or that we should speculate or assume knowledge or expertise we don’t have (I know people mean well when they say Archie’s mum is mentally unwell, and she must be under immense strain, but we simply cannot and should not be making that diagnosis in this or any case. It’s not a public matter. It’s a private matter to be dealt with by professionals only. Also being mentally unwell does not necessarily mean lacks capacity)

@MayThe4th

metro.co.uk/2006/10/16/baby-charlotte-to-be-fostered-279897/

It was Charlotte’s case which was in my medical ethics seminars. That would have been around 2003, I think. I recall arguing that the her parents couldn’t possibly know what they were asking of the medical team. That no one who hadn’t been involved with profound disabilities could ever be expected to understand the life they were fighting for them to have as a family. That they could not consent, because they couldn’t possibly understand (and the process of consent means to make a decision with a full understanding of the consequences) I believe she did go to foster care because they couldn’t care for her themselves. I have an inkling of how hard that is and I make no criticism. But I think it does highlight that parents can want very badly for their child to live, while simply not understanding the consequences of that life. Poor children. And poor parents. It’s an impossible position.

@Eeksteek thanks - I know a lot about MCA and best interests unfortunately. I was just giving an example of me consenting (as a parent) to treatment for a younger child - obviously the form is just a record. I just felt the original statement was incorrect.

@Babyboomtastic a terminal patient under sedation IS alive. Until the point where their heart and brain stops. (These happen around the same time). So that person is just like us but when we are asleep. Not conscious but definitely alive in both body and brain. So not yet in the afterlife.

Whereas with Archie, his brain died due to it being starved of oxygen when he hanged himself. He was lost at that point. We are artificially making his heart pump blood and oxygen round him but his brain is still dead. His body will eventually fail too, it's already starting to decompose. So he is deceased/gone to the afterlife, however you want to describe it.

As you say, maybe it doesn't matter much but this is my instinct about the difference between the 2 scenarios.

Otherwise, someone with parental responsibility can consent for them.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/consent-to-treatment/children/

^^ here, the original quote didn't reflect this I felt.

I remember this. What a sad story xx

If they didn't allow reporting, there would be all sorts of conspiracy theories floating around and talk of free speech being stifled. Nowadays it's incredibly difficult to enforce that sort of order, because there are ways of channelling information onto social media through other countries which make it very difficult to trace and stop. Even superinjunctions have been known to leak out .

I’m struggling to articulate this properly, but I am really uncomfortable with the language of ‘being a fighter’, ‘battling an illness’ or ‘never giving up’ that is so often associated with people who have had an accident, been unwell, ‘beaten’ cancer and so on. I can understand that some people find it comforting, but there’s a feeling attached to it that anything can be overcome if you just fight hard enough. For Hollie, she is being a fighter, she isn’t giving in and stopping now would make her a failure, egged on by the Facebook army.

The sad truth is that not everyone will survive and it’s not because they weren’t brave enough, strong enough or didn’t fight hard enough. It’s heartbreaking, but not everything can be battled against and won.

I guess it comes down to where the 'soul' of a person is. If its in their brain because without that there no 'you' or personality, destruction of the brain would = absolute death, or whether it's in the body as a whole.

What I meant about the terminal sedation is that we far as the person is concerned, the final loss of consciousness is 'it' even if some or all of the body goes on for a while. Time and bodily death won't matter to that person.

Who knows. If there is a heaven, and I get there, I'll put it on the (long) list of questions to ask God

I think it's something we can all have a different view on, whilst simultaneously thinking that further ventilation is futile.

Of course a parent can consent to the medical treatment of a child. It’s where the parents disagree (either between themselves or with the medics) that the courts get involved. A child can consent to their own medical treatment (and in conflict with their parents, the child’s wishes take precedence) if they are considered competent to do so.

In saying no one can consent to another’s medical treatment what happens when I take my 1 year old to hospital and they need to give him calpol. Who consents to this? Do we presume consent when he opens his mouth for the spoon? Of course not (because consent cannot be given within the full facts being understood and a child of this age cannot possibly understand these fact) In this case the Drs say “your child needs calpol to bring their temperature down” and we say “please give it to him”. That’s me, consenting to my baby’s medical treatment.

It’s absolutely imperative that we keep open justice. Justice needs to be seen to be done, as well as done. If these judgements were not published, the other party could make any allegations they wanted and the Hospital / Dr / Guardian simply would not be able to defend themselves.

And how would you enforce “closed justice”, especially a case such as this, with a mother absolutely focused on the media (both mainstream and social media) and fund raising? Because if you have a law, you have to have a way of enforcing it and punishing the wrongdoers. What would you have done to the Mother if she posted something that broke the confidentiality? Would you have her brought before the court for contempt, the ultimate punishment being imprisonment? Would anyone think it’s appropriate to place a mother in prison as their child lay in a hospital bed? Clearly not.

So whilst it is horrific to see the photos of this child, I can’t see how it can be avoided.

This aside, whilst reading the judgments, I am utterly astonished by the sheer amount of treatment available and the skill of the medical professionals involved. Having not had much medical interventions in my life (or thankfully that of my close family) It is quite remarkable and has obviously saved countless numbers of lives. How we now have medication to replace this hormone, or medication to replicate that organ function or a machine to take over what would normally be done by the lungs etc.