Archie Battersebee case-thread 2

[whynotwhatknot]

ongoing from previous thread

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

The hospital’s lawyers don’t need to investigate anything.

The courts advised on Monday that they could legally withdraw the life support. After that leave to appeal has been denied, and this is where it should end.

Actually I think that at this point the court should issue an order saying that the life support has to be removed to stop this once and for all.

Or maybe they’re going to switch it off in the middle of the night in order to avoid people coming into the hospital and obstructing things and so it has less of an impact on the other parents and children on the ward.

The longer this goes on, the higher the risk Archie will have a cardiac arrest and possible die without his loved ones there and in far more distressing circumstances. I appreciate his parents must be beside themselves with grief but this has gone on so long and they’re going to burn out.

The trouble is that there has been no finding that he is dead. According to the CA judgment, they argued that both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons of Disability applied.

The order currently governing what happens next is that of Judge Hayden. We don't know the exact format of that order, but we know he said he could not authorise the continuation of his present treatment or declare it to be lawful, because it is "intrusive, burdensome and intensive" and "compromises Archie's dignity, deprives him of his autonomy, and becomes wholly inimical to his welfare". In those circumstances the hospital must now be under a duty to stop treatment as soon as possible because there is in effect a finding that it is harming Archie.

I actually think this is what Hollie (thinks) she wants. To “win” against the hospital setting a time and date for the ventilator to stop

I hope not cause there is no winners in this story. Though you're probably right. From the sounds she feels taking him off the ventilator is unnatural and killing him whereas if he passes by himself then its gods will

That group...its all bonkers. Least people are trying to put her straight about blood and that storming the hospital be a bad idea but amongst those there still is the ones of go go go

in a way i think pp are right she wants him to die her way as in not turning the machine off

she risks not being there and i think after a while that will eat away at her rather than her win against all the doctors and courts

if she refuses to be there i dont know how she could live with herself

there is still alot of support n the comments on fb on various articles about archie and the case

people saying mum knows best he squeezed her hand etc-all that is stil go9ing on they then admit theyve read nothing about the case

You'd probably still get letters requesting you turn up to PIP assessments

"n a way i think pp are right she wants him to die her way as in not turning the machine off

she risks not being there and i think after a while that will eat away at her rather than her win against all the doctors and courts

if she refuses to be there i dont know how she could live with herself"

Then she's a selfish idiot. Sorry to say. But she's putting herself first and foremost. I can't reconcile that thinking

I think the court battles have been a way of purposefully avoiding the reality of her dying (dead) son and the circumstances in which he was found.

Coupled with it “stick it to the man” attitude.

i agree if either his heart stops and she’s not there, whether because the ventilator stops or his heart finally gives out she’ll regret it. The PiCU staff know this too and are continuing to be compassionate, although I’m sure they also can’t wait for this circus to be over,

I said this to a friend last night when we were talking about the case.. and both then said the same thing 'DWP would find you fit to work and not disabled enough for PIP though...'

I really am digging deep to try to find sympathy for his parents, but for Hollie that is so hard now - that said, i CANNOT imagine craving attention as she seems to do, feeling so guilty and then being carried away on the tide of 'the Army' .. that must be overwhelming, to feel so supported, but to also feel in control of that as she surely must at times.. and yet at others I bet it doesn't feel like that at all...

I wouldn't wish this on anyone, but I really hope for, if not Archie, because he's gone now, but for other kids in the future, this is resolved swiftly.

Mums don't always know best, that's a phrase that always gets trotted out. In situations like this, mums don't know better than medical experts. She's seen parts of the brain are dead and still doesn't accept it, she's not a medical professional. She needs to listen to the professional and not a random Facebook 'army'

compromises Archie's dignity, deprives him of his autonomy, and becomes wholly inimical to his welfare

Thank you Judge.

I'm going to reveal something that will partially explain my investment in this case, apart from my professional interest in the social media aspect. I've briefly died (in an accident), been revived, and been in a coma for a few days before I woke up. My downtime, as they say, was a couple of minutes at most, and I had no long-term effects except for losing memory of a couple of days before the accident. Don't worry, I 'm completely fine now. I'm just imagining how I'd feel if photographs of me after the accident, hooked up to a vent, in a nappy, were broadcast over the internet. This is why I feel the way I do about the mother.

Can you imagine if a dog or cat was treated with the indignity that Archie is being treated right now? There would be uproar and rightly so.

Can I ask some questions on here (non speculating )

Are there test the hospital can do to prove medically he is brain dead rather than 'likely' . I understand his parents didn't want a test originally because it would involve removing his ventilator for a short period , which would compromise his breathing ..
Hollie was claiming the original MRI wasn;t Archies due to a discrepancy in the number of teeth ??
He cannot be removed from his room for MRI etc but there must be some difinitive proof ( I know they'd have thought of this if it was appropriate )

If the videoes she has of him "breathing" (I've watched one , there's a voice recording going breathe in, deep breath out or similar , and the noise of the machine) . were analysed against the recoded output of the ventilator they would prove there is no breathing .
They'd get thrown out as 'evidence' because it isn't evidence
Hollie claims a machine was removed from Archies bedside that she was watching

If they are as they say waiting for God to decide , why not remove everything . If he's alive there will be some reaction. If he's dead there will be none
On the seventh day , God didn't make ventilators .

Is Hollie thinking if she doesn't go to the bedside then they cannot switch him off ?

And why would she want him to go through a cardiac arrest rather than a planned withdrawel of assisted breathing ?
I'm guessing if he does arrest there will be no alarms and the monitors will register silently . They will all need to stand and watch it happen. Sounds brutal to all involved

Can anyone like the latest ruling?

I hear a lot of people say this with elderly end of life care .
I know when my Dad was on EoLC (and due to Covid only my Bro and SIL could be there ) I watched on Zoom thinking "If you were a pet dog it would be more humane ..."
And obviously I don't know what my Dad was thinking at the time ( on his morphine drip ) but I know in his heydays he'd have said take me to the Vet and have me shot
We always joked that Vets charge by weight so he'd be four shillings 'n; sixpence (Dad was very slim all his life ) Gallow Humour

@70isaLimitNotaTarget

And why would she want him to go through a cardiac arrest rather than a planned withdrawel of assisted breathing ?
I'm guessing if he does arrest there will be no alarms and the monitors will register silently . They will all need to stand and watch it happen. Sounds brutal to all involved

I have wittiness this when I worked on adult icu.
It's horrendous. The monitors are switched off at the bed side, but we could see the monitor at the nurses station, the monitor was silent and so were we.
It's instinct to do anything as a HCP but as there was a DNAR , we stood and watched.
It was soul destroying. On a ward this can happen of course but the patients aren't monitored, so in a way it's less traumatic for both families and staff.

I truly hope the staff get some kind of counselling after this.

It just seems so at odds that she wants to inflict this on him.

I know Hollie has stated a planned withdrawel means they are deliberately forcing the end , and maybe she feels complicite , as a Yes , end my son's life
Or does she feel in cardiac arrest it is Archie's body's "choice" ( use the term choice very broadly but it would be without intervention from other sources )
(As it is looking more and more likely that he chose to attempt to take his own life , maybe she wants him to have the ultimate decision? )

I'm sure it will all have been explained to her , the process of withdrawel v cardiac arrest .

Cardiac arrest is “gods will”

Withdrawing life support is murder.

That is their tagline

It's just interesting the army haven't been those those bits of information and those who questioned it when it was raised in court got told they were trolls and got banned. From their understanding its that the hospital are stopping him waking up..not that he won't last much longer if left

Are there test the hospital can do to prove medically he is brain dead rather than 'likely' . I understand his parents didn't want a test originally because it would involve removing his ventilator for a short period , which would compromise his breathing ..
Hollie was claiming the original MRI wasn;t Archies due to a discrepancy in the number of teeth ??

Unfortunately by the time the doctors did try the brain stem death test, as ordered by the court, he was essentially too dead for it to be useful. One of the tests is a motor response test, and to fulfil the brain stem death criteria you need to not pull away from painful stimulus.

However, before this they did a preliminary test of peripheral motor (movement) nerves. Motor nerves need to work in order for muscles to move. In the ICU setting excessive sedation can cause blockage of peripheral nerve function so I suppose it was done to prove he wasn’t being sedated or paralysed. You can imagine a scenario where someone wants to move but can’t because they paralysed from anaesthetic drugs.

However, the test was done long long after any paralysing or sedating drugs would have left his system but there was no peripheral nerve response, which meant there was a theoretical possibility of Archie feeling pain and not being able to respond to it because his nerves couldn’t transmit the impulses to his muscles.

In reality he was just too dead, which is why his peripheral nerves didn’t respond.

If you read the High Court judgement you can see the results of his MRI scans, showing no blood flow to his brain and how his brain is necrotic and dropping off down his spine.

MRIs are done in slices, not all of his teeth would have been on the same plane/slice. Nothing sinister or unusual.

'I think the court battles have been a way of purposefully avoiding the reality of her dying (dead) son and the circumstances in which he was found.

Coupled with it “stick it to the man” attitude'

Yeah there's definitely an element of defiance now, she doesn't want the hospital and the critics ('trolls') to 'win.'

There was a discussion on the other thread about changing the criteria for brain stem death to include the results of MRI scans or similar. As someone pointed out, the problem with that is that it would become standard, with the result of the deceased and/or brain dead having to be dragged off to hospitals for scans, just to tick that box. The reality is that 99.99% of relatives in this position accept both medical advice and the evidence of their own eyes, so the sort of issue that we have had in this case simply never arises.