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 don’t know anything about the money and I have my own views as to what a funeral should be but I can not find it in myself anywhere to criticise a parent for the way they choose to send their child off. It must be the most horrific thing to go through and whstever they think is appropriate will be.

The hospital aren't going to withdraw his life support without his mum being there if she wants to be. nobody has said they will turn off the machines if the parents want to be there.

But the parents aren’t going to be able to use delay tactics to stop them turning off the machines indefinitely.

If the parents don’t agree to be there the machines will at some point be switched off. The hope is that the parents now cooperate with the hospital as to the timing, hopefully tonight, that the machines will be turned off.

This.

They'll come to an arrangement about time and date.

The parents not turning up won't change that.

And if it does all they have to do is apply to court for permission for an agreed time.

My heart absolutely goes out to Archie's parents. Coming home to find your child like that will alter your life forever as much as losing a child will.

But that doesn't mean continuing life support for Archie is the best thing for him anymore.

It was on that website about 07.10am so before the most recent tuling.

But even so , he's not 'sleeping' .
He hasn't slept for 3 sodding months .
He might not be dead technically but he's no sort of alive that I'd ever want to be .

Hopefully common sense and the Courts will bring this to a swift conclusion. For everyone sake

That's made me really angry actually, they spend weeks calling people 'retards' and other slurs like that and then try to use laws to protect people with disabilities to carry on this - whatever it is they are doing.

And as for 3 men turning up at the door - there's no way they came from the dignity group - WHY would 3 heavies turn up looking for Hollie unless there was (a) something v dodgy going on (going by the comments about the family by locals this wouldn't surprise me) or (b) she is lying. Sorry I know this isn't the time and they've just had bad news but Jesus fucking Christ the other poor souls in that ICU and their families and the staff! And that boy on his deathbed with all this going on and half the country calling in to gawk at him and the other half seeing it all on Facebook.

I see a few people have expressed dismay at Archie receiving blood - I don’t remember reading that? I thought it said he’s had iron infusions (not the same as a blood transfusion)

it was definitely both. The judgment referenced blood loss from frequent sampling, stated he’d had an iron infusion (and I thought that would be all) and then he mentioned blood transfusions as well.

i suppose with multiple samples/day the losses are too great not to need a transfusion.

How can the family ask the UN to intervene now that the Supreme Court have refused? Surely the existing ruling made on Monday still applies?

I keep saying this but I don’t think Hollie is rational at the moment.

*BREAKING: This afternoon the Supreme Court has refused to intervene in Archie's case. The families' legal team are now seeking assurances from the hospital Trust that they will not remove life-support, despite now being allowed to do so legally, and that they will allow the family to make their application to the UN.

Archie's mum has described the news as 'devastating'. Please pray.*

^ this taken from Christian Concern's Facebook page. I thought they'd been refused an appeal to the UN? Surely the hospital won't allow this, it's clearly another delay tactic.

This entire situation is such a tragedy, but Archie's parents are clearly taking it too far now, it's high time to end this scharade.

The poor boy suffered irreversible brain damage several months ago and has made no recovery since then. Seeing pictures of his poor emaciated body is just shocking, I can't imagine looking at my child in that state and thinking that I'd keep them like that. Understandably the parents and the mum in particular are in a state of shock and grief, but they are clearly not thinking rationally and cannot think about Archie's best interest.

Sadly precious and beloved children die every day due to illness, accidents and injury, and devastatingly death is a part of life. If something happened to my dc I would never recover from it, but I would trust dedicated medical professionals and try to give my children a peaceful and dignified death. This media circus his parents have created hasn't got a shread of dignity.

It seems that parents who are less educated are the ones (Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans) that mistrust doctors and science.

The courts have decided it is in Archie's best interests for 'treatment' to be withdrawn.

I doubt the hospital has the authority to 'make assurances', even if they (however you define 'them') want to despite the exhausting months of keeping a dead child breathing and blocking a bed that could potentially be used to save lives.

I think at this point the hospital should say “we’ll be switching the machines off at …” and give a time. If Archie’s parents aren’t there then that is their choice.

These stalling tactics need to stop, and action needs to be taken.

Sadly, I think Hollie is so far from being anywhere near ready to start processing her loss - I think even after the machines have been turned off, and he’s been put to rest (finally) - there will then be an inquest into his death, to try and ascertain what happened. I can see her being very combative during that and resisting any suggestion that it was a suicide and of course there’s all the conflicting accounts of who found him when and where etc that will need to be straightened out.

I can also see her using the money that’s been raised to try and sue the hospital for malpractice or some other such nonsense.

And all the while she’s focusing on this, she’s not allowing herself to grieve for her son. And of course the ‘army and the CL will have moved on to their next victims.

I hope she has people who will come around her at that time, once all the dust has settled and she’s at home on her own without him and it all sinks in.

Please pardon my ignorance but what say would the UN have over this?

I really don't like to cast aspersions... but..

If he dies and they are not there, that gives them something ELSE to rage and rail about. 'We were denied... because they made us fight.. because .... ' etc etc, blame someone else.

I can understand the desire to lay blame somewhere else if one feels horribly guilty (whether that guilt is deserved or not) about actions that may or may not have led up to someones death.

I also think theres a good deal of 'attention' to be had if they refuse to be there in the hopes it will delay switch off (whether they are actively hoping he has a heart attack and dies that way or not) and try to stop the hospital doing it on the grounds that they are not there for insert spurious reasons

One could be more generous minded and consider that his mother having made such a hugely public fuss and attack on the hospital and nurses... might choose not to be there to avoid 'that whole thing' - but then she has a whole army, mostly of her own creation, behind her who would likely revolt at the idea she would choose NOT to be there and thus to 'let it happen'.. so shes never going to admit that...

I really want to feel sympathy for her, and his whole family tbh, but I am struggling given their behaviour.

@nolongersurprised ah thanks, I’d missed that. He is so haemodynamically unstable I guess he’s had just about everything.

The UN Rights of a Child, maybe?

No, Rights of Disabled People

Pretty sure there are no Rights that apply to a person that dead though … except the right for a body to be treated with dignity perhaps - which Archie’s body is currently being denied…

They were refused leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, on the basis there was nothing wrong with the CA's decision. However, the judgment didn't mention the UN and I very much doubt the Supreme Court has any say one way or the other in that. I think there's some confusion because they hoped to get a delay whilst asking the UN to intervene.

I have absolutely no idea whether the UN has that right - the CLC suggest they do but I wouldn't want to take their word for it. But the fact that the family don't seem to have entered any application with the UN yet is hardly helpful, and I would have thought if the UN was willing to intervene in this sort of case it would certainly have been tried before. But I guess the hospital's lawyers are now very busy investigating that and yet more legal fees are being clocked up pointlessly: even if the UN do look into this, it's hardly likely that they'll differ from the EHCR on the lawfulness of our best interests jurisdiction.

But he’s not disabled. He’s dead.

Honestly if my child were to miss out on treatment because of this farce I would want to go in there and pull out the plug myself.

Being .. DEAD.. is not a fucking disability. In what way is he disabled?! Asides from you know, the side effects of having died...

I shall tell my partner to preserve me in aspic when I go and carry on claiming benefits etc for me.. as being dead will just be a further aspect of my disability...

I still don't understand the disability argument,he wasn't disabled before the incident and the incident left him brain stem dead,it doesn't make sense.

It's starting to border on farce now that they want to appeal elsewhere.

Let another child have a chance of life in that bed.

There was some suggestion on DFA that Hollie had posted something asking what white witches were; and that this might have attracted religious nutters anxious to deter her from the paths of satanism or something. But they also said she let them in. I guess she might have done that thinking they were AA or something? It's all very odd.