Archie Battersbee - Thread 4

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Archie Battersbee - Thread 3 http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/inthee_news/4601962-archie-battersbee-thread-3

They need to keep her unbalanced or she might change her mind. It all seems highly manipulative

That is such a good point.

Their seemingly unlimited funds will dry up when this is over and Hollie wants to sue everyone as well

I see what you're saying.

But if there weren't deadlines to submit evidence for appeal then the family could take weeks or months to peruse an appeal. This goes against the original decision they are appealing that Archie being kept ventilated isn't in his best interests.

I've met people like Ms Dance before. It won't matter what you say and do they'll hear and see what they like. There are some people who truly believe everyone who disagrees with them is out to get them. It must be such a sad and lonely existence because you end up alienating those closest to you and having very short term cheerleaders who use your vulnerability for their own gain.

Ms Dance keeps changing her mind about what's happening. What she thinks and using abhorrent descriptions of the medics motives towards her son.

Meanwhile her son, Archie, is being kept alive by a knife point with drugs that are replicating his brains job.

And lawyers will have prepared any appeals with their original case. This isn't a whole new appeal with a whole new load of evidence it's asking another court for their option on the current case.

When my mother died, my father suffered what was called 'hysterical grief'. Basically he never got over it, he was very open that he would have been happy for Mum to live for years, pain free, and unconscious if it meant he could spend his days reading quietly by her beside. 20 years after her death and he would talk about it as if it had only just happened. It was awful to watch. I feel Hollie is in a similar downward spiral. Archie has no chance of recovery, and doctors must act in his best interest.

i think you misread the post. that is what @JenniferAlisonPhilipaSue was pretty much saying (imo) \the mother is saying he is disabled when he is "dead" that is very offensive.

I feel that if Hollie wants to organise and pay for a retrieval team to take Archie to Japan or Turkey then fair play to her. In reality, it would be all over before they left the country and the cost of the retrieval alone would bankrupt her

Archie has ADHD which is a disability (it meets the legal definition of disability in the UK)

Just watched a quick snippet on bbc news - mum saying he has a brain injury and he's being discriminated against. He doesn't have a brain injury he is brain dead!

She's handing onto the one line in the court decision that Archie couldn't be legally declared dead because he hasn't had brain stem testing. Ignoring the fact she refused it initially at a time it would have been an effective diagnostic tool. (We have to accept the peripheral nerves may have not allowed it initially but we can't know that)

So for her his brain is injured. No one is allowed to say he is brain dead and therefore his injury classes him as disabled.

It's a cleat case of a desperate person making sure we only hear what she wants to be true.

My heart breaks for her. But I vehemently disagree with her abuse of the nhs consultants and spending this time trying to gaslight a country into believing the nhs want to execute her son. I disagree with her changing her outset in court and the media and posting the most undignified pictures of her son online.

This needs to end for Archie. Nothing they do now will comfort Ms Dance and this ultimately isn't about her despite her best attempts at making it so.

No one doubts she loves her son. By doing on tv daily to repeat this she is actually not acting in his best interests. She won't see this now or maybe the near future. And Archie is becoming a victim or her behaviour.

Just a reference to Tony Bland, the medical team and his parents agreed that allowing him to die was the right thing, I can't exactly remember who got in touch with the police but basically parents and medical staff could have faced a murder charge. THat's why they had to go to court.

Andrew Devine was left in a similar state but went home to a family who were able to care for him.

Neither family made the wrong decision. RIP Tony and Andrew and the other 95.

As medicine has improved the point of death becomes harder to define, you can remove an animal heart and keep it beating in a lab with chemicals but the animal is dead.

You only have ADHD if you are alive. They are basing it on his current condition. Death is not a disability.

Patients "Best Interests" is the key to all of this as we know.

When I got a 2am phone call out of the blue to tell my my mum had suffered a massive brain bleed that she would not survive, I was five hours drive away (for one night only) instead of the usual five minute walk. I BEGGED the consultant to keep her alive until I could get to her. I was howling/crying/begging down the phone explaining that this was the first night I'd been away in two years and a similar thing had happened to me two years previously with my dad (i missed his death my 10 minutes) and please just keep her on the machine until I could get there in a few hours.

They told me 'nope'. I had two hours tops and anything more was cruel. I couldn't make it. Instead my husband got there within twenty minutes and sat with her holding a phone to her (dead) ear so I could talk to her till she went.

At the time, in the heat of my grief, I was so upset (and a bit angry) that they couldn't give me a few more hours to get there, but - and here is the thing - where does it end? It is not the NHS job to keep a heart beating until the family are ready to 'let go' - otherwise we'd have vent farms on every high street. What I think HD is struggling with (particularly due to the 'Huns' who are in her ear) is that the best interests can include death. It is really really hard to wrap your head around that.

ahh didn't know that, but bet im not the only one who assumed she was using disability. (hope that makes sense)

Archie has ADHD which is a disability (it meets the legal definition of disability in the UK)

True. However this isn't the disability she's claiming in question. You cannot say they are discriminating against him because of his ADHD because the decision being made is based on his current brain function which adhd is irrelevant too.

She's claiming because he isn't and cannot be legally declared dead then he is brain injured.

Thanks for responding to my very clumsily worded comment!

I don't disagree at all with your assessment of Archie's mum.

And absolutely there has to be timescales in place.

But just as an example - Supreme Court ruling yesterday so they plan to switch machines off at 11am today. For me, that feels a bit brutal. The comment from the hospital about the next round of appeal papers having to be in at 9am or else they'd switch the machines off at 11am, regardless. Jesus......

I know most of us don't agree with the route Hollie is taking - but I don't think the hospital are covering themselves in glory either. As I say, I think Charlie Gard's parents had three days after the final ruling - that seems much fairer and more compassionate. Hollie is going to run out of avenues to pursue very, very soon. And judging by this, as soon as she does they're going to swoop in and switch it all off the very next morning.

Regardless of Hollie's character and the route she's opted to take, that doesn't feel like a kind approach and really, I think it fuels the fire of the claims that she's making. I think they should give him/her 2-3 days before taking the final step.

I read that thread it certainly made interesting reading.

@SpidersAreShitheads I think the issue is they've been talking about this since maybe day 3? When they brought up organ donation
I imagine she's been constantly told there is no hope of recovery, and the hospital have brought up the ending life support over and over but from what I can see she has refused meetings/the staff relationships have broken down

2-3 days every time means weeks with the appeals etc and every time they give him more days it's longer without his dignity and risking the chance of him dying while she's not there

I mean, and I know this sounds harsh but if she had agreed to organ donation and accepted what was happening, she would have had less notice
Most people don't get months to be told someone is dying, some people aren't there and get a call to say their parent/child has died

I'd understand that if this only happened yesterday but the hospital have given her 3 months to prepare. Effectively they want to switch off life support three months after the event, not the next day.

So yet another appeal...........

My take this morning on it is that the hospital seem increasingly reluctant to end life support........ hence all the additional time that the family are continually being granted.

Which leads me to the conclusion that they're now probably barely managing Archie's condition and the "natural" process of death that Hollie is so fixated on really isn't that far away now.

Think about what you are saying. This is somebodies child and you're talking about him taking up an nhs bed and his treatment being pointless. Imagine that was your child and people were talking about him like that. As a mother she will be clinging to every little bit of hope. I understand doctors decision but people should show a bit of compassion and respect. If it were my child and you said something like that, it would not be taken well, and that's putting it very lightly.

And by the same token: imagine that your desperately ill child is waiting on a PICU bed, and you can see that Archie's is being taken up by a dead child. It SHOULD be available. The treatments he's receiving ARE pointless, and hugely draining in terms of just about every resource concerned.

The truth is that Archie died a long time ago, now, and pointing that out, and pointing out that 'treating' his condition is futile, is not being nasty or disrespectful, no matter how much it hurts.

The timelines feel that the hospital are pushing to pull the plug on Archie ASAP. I know this has been going on since April but it's been a constant legal fight. Reading the news, it feels almost like once the court ruling is made, Archie's family are up against the clock to get their next legal challenge in before the hospital switch off the machines.

I might be missing something here but it feels like the hospital are trying to rush through switching it all off even if it doesn't give Hollie etc time to pursue a legal challenge through every avenue, which she IS entitled to do (even if we don't agree with it). Like today for example - the machines were due to go off at 11am, and the hospital has said that if the EHCR papers aren't lodged by 9am they'll proceed as planned. That just feels wrong to me. I know this is horrible and dragging on, but if there's a legal process that Hollie is allowed to follow, then their aggressive timeline feels a bit - off?

Not that much of a rush. After Archie was admitted on 7 April, the hospital applied for a specific order that they be permitted to carry out brain stem testing on 26th April. They tried to do the tests on 16th May, but couldn't, and applied to the court on 31st May for permission to do an MRI scan. The application for a brain stem death/best interests declaration came to court on 6th June.

The hospital has a declaration that continued ventilation and treatment is "intrusive, burdensome and intensive ... it compromises Archie's dignity, deprives him of his autonomy, and becomes wholly inimical to his welfare. It serves only to protract his death, whilst being unable to prolong his life." Essentially, it is harmful to him. Every day this continues increases that harm. They are right to prioritise that over the convenience of lawyers.

The lawyers were initially given a deadline last week for lodging the ECHR appeal and they chose not to do so. Suddenly announcing now that they've changed their minds is blatantly manipulative and has more to do with the CLC agenda than Archie's welfare. If they didn't prepare EHCR papers after the Court of Appeal decision last week with the result that they had to work through the night last night, that's no-one's fault but theirs.

Think with Charlie it wasn't a matter of days/weeks before he would pass away. Whereas with Archie it could happen anytime so that's maybe why it's rushed more?Though that's what she wants so if it was to happen that way be no complaints from the family.

The ‘army’ is full of internet strangers, many of whom are claiming to be doctors/nurses/lawyers without a scrap of evidence to verify. If someone says “I’m a doctor and that number on the machine means he’s definitely aware of everything! Fight!”, Hollie is going to cling to that. “They can’t do that hun I’m a lawyer and under (hastily googled legislation with only a passing link to anything related) it’s discrimination!”. An internet stranger can claim to be anyone they like.

Interesting perspectives on this thread.

It is a terribly sad case and I hope Archie isn't suffering. The thing that made me really uncomfortable was the stuff about 'you have to fight for your child' when lots of other people will have lost children in similar circumstances and accepted the doctors' (correct) advice. They will be living with that moment every day of their lives.

It's strange for sure the degree of media coverage.

The only question I had was whether the hospitals/doctors have handled this as sympathetically as they could. I don't know the answer to this, so I'm asking the question.

I think it's entirely possible that the doctors weren't as sympathetic as maybe they could have been. Doctors deal with these situations everyday and sometimes their manner doesn't come across the way a distraught family member expects.

That said, after all this chaos and all the accusations, I'd imagine the staff are at the end of their tether and it's probably just a vicious cycle now.