Archie Battersbee - Thread 3

[BongoJim]

Follow on from previous full thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/in_the_news/4596573-archie-battersebee-case-thread-2?page=1

This is nothing to do with his medical team?

Rightly so they have remained silent albeit with some statements from Barts.

I'm talking about the journalistics who are choosing to write articles in this way, or interviewers who are allowing these things to go uncorrected @nolongersurprised

@nolongersurprised @reesewithoutaspoon

Thanks

Thank you for this @myrtleWilson!
I understand now 😊

Journalists have the court documents which are in the public domain - referring to him as "brain damaged" or in a "coma" instead of reporting accurately does nothing to preserve his privacy/dignity, but does mislead anyone reading it.

Too dead to test is a helpful, if shocking phrase.

In order to complete brain stem tests, for example when organ donation is being considered, the patient's vital signs have to be within normal ranges.

As an example, when people are very cold their metabolism slows and their oxygen requirements fall. There have been cases of people who were very cold, often after being in water for a long time, being successfully resuscitated.

For this reason, you can't conduct brain stem tests if someone is too cold. They wouldn't be valid.

I haven't read the court documents, but assume that Archie's condition is such that it would not be possible to conduct valid tests and so the legal standard for BS death cannot be met.

Being in a coma is exactly what the courts say though!

Being pedantic here, but it was my post and I believe I wrote ‘99%+’, not ‘99%’. I agree that the number of these hard cases is much smaller than 1%. But I don’t think anyone knows the exact figure.

Sorry i didn't see the +

On the GMB interview she wanted him 'moved' because the room wasn't private enough.
The door was open , the curtains were open.

When they do start the process of withdrawel of life support the PICU dept will be aware . They can have the family there , the medics can do what they have outlined then they can allow the family the time to hold him. And if the want to photograph or film then can the hospital refuse that?
Unless there is the very real threat of Hollie/ Another Person creating a disturbance.
The curtains could be drawn the door could be shut (but unlocked)

This case reminds me of what happened to an old school friend of mine years ago in the early days of Facebook. She suffered a sudden, terrible bereavement and then essentially had a mental breakdown in public. She was surrounded by "friends" giving atrocious online advice as she made awful decisions whilst in the spasms of raw grief. It resulted in her youngest children being taken into care for some time.

Archie's mother doesn't appear to have anyone calm and rational arpimd her at her most vulnerable.

I watched the GMB interview Hollie is convinced he has a brain injury and not brain dead.

People survive and live with brain damage, the doctors don't insist on plugging the plug so to speak if the body is responding.

She looks broken - As a parent with SN DC who suffers from depression, the advice is always the same focus on sports - get the child a pet companion, it looks like he was a busy boy involved in outdoor activities.

Services are so bad. I can't get my DD into sports she has a physical disability too while MH care is abysmal.

This thread has shook me up.

But because the medical team are silent, the only version the journalists have is Hollie’s.

This is Archie now , not losing weight like courts are being told now . His stats all good as they have been 99% time he's been there . He's on 3 drugs and the main one is running at 5% to 10% . Archie is doing the rest . Clearly not actions of a brain dead child. The videos I have of machine and him taking breaths all ignored . This is something much bigger going on here. I hope and 🙏
no one ever has to go through this x

This morning's update from his mum, I hope she reaches some kind of acceptance before he passes.

No they don't? As said above, they have all the court documents which include medical reports?

news.sky.com/story/we-will-fight-to-the-end-archie-battersbees-parents-defiant-after-court-rules-life-support-treatment-can-end-12663661

You have to wonder how the latest picture emaciated in a happy is translating in her mind. I can't look at that picture and match it with her description even with the largest stretch of imagination.

This article is confusing. So they have been denied appeal and told he will be switched off the ventilator today at 12 but his mom was on GMTV this morning and saying they are going to appeal?

Think there's been some confusion with the 5-10% vasopressin too - Hollie seems to think this is a good thing and it means his brain is producing 90-95%.

It's just how they're referring to the concentration in saline or whatever else they use to dilute :(

He's on 3 drugs and the main one is running at 5% to 10% . Archie is doing the rest

This is why I think Hollie wanted the vasopressin stopped rather than the ventilator. She doesn’t understand concentrations - believes that if the concentration is 10% then the rest is Archie, rather than appreciating that the drug amount will be set, and the concentration refers to the volume of fluid it’s mixed in.

She sees the hospital as going against her when they’re trying to protect her from a horrible death of Archie passing catastrophic amounts of urine before his heart stopped from hypovolaemic shock.

The CLC wanted this because they are angling for ventilation not to be stopped when there is a beating heart.

Unfortunately he's medically dead and because the media do not want to say this in interviews, the interviews are misleading.

@quia You're right the panel would depend on the presenting condition so the idea would be a permanent medical panel whose members are coopted according to the presenting condition. It would require a political action to establish and caarve out the legal procedure but the concept would try and remove the courts from intervening by setting the test as 'has the panel made an irrational decision or procedural error and, if not, the presumption is that the medical decision is final' rather than enabling the legal circus that has occurred here. If the parents have lost confidence in the hospital then they will have the comfort of independent medical opinion but this is not mediation and reduces the scope for any actors behind the scenes promoting their agenda outside the political process.

I think in cases like these it should be kept completely private. Hollie shouldn’t be allowed to be on TV basically saying the hospital are manipulating facts, that they are telling lies, that they are “silencing” the family, that they are “trying to hide things”or anything else she has come out with that implies the hospital staff are lying and that’s there’s some kind of cover up going on because they want want to execute Archie.

It’s not right that she should be allowed to say all this and nobody being allowed to disagree with her or that nobody from the Trust can defend themselves.

It’s so utterly wrong.

All the interviewers who have given Hollie a platform to do this are disgraceful in my mind and they are also part of the problem.

But they can’t dispute what she says. So when she goes on TV and says, he’s breathing, he’s progressing, he’s squeezing my hand it all goes unchallenged.

Her frequent interviews, TV appearances are creating the narrative and her sense of urgency.

She is still on social media in these last few hours. Posting on fb and sharing others posts.

I'd have thought that would be last thing family would do in a child's final hours. We are all different I guess

I have often wondered if like young peoples names and identities are kept out of the media for crimes if they need the same rules around medical situations like this
To protect the child

While I can see some merit in this, what possible means would there be to stop parents blasting it all over SM themselves? If we've got to a point where interviewers can't say "Well actually ..." it's hardly likely an instruction to stay off SM would be considered acceptable, even if there was the slightest chance of it being heeded

Like others I honestly don't think there's anything which would have made a difference here - committees of experts, insistence on a brainstem test, the post mortem when it comes or whatever else. They're all "official" so have been deemed the enemy, and with Hollie's mindset the only people being listened to are far from being expert in anything (and there seems little way of stopping them either)

As I've said before, the internet/SM is now a Pandora's Box which can't be closed, so perhaps we can only be grateful that these cases are so very rare

It’s a distraction and also her comfort.