Sisters denied chance to say farewell to their dad

‘All we wanted was one last hug with brain-damaged father’

THREE sisters have been denied the chance to say goodbye to their brain-damaged father in person after losing an emotional court battle.

The women failed to persuade a judge to rule that their father should be kept alive until they can get to his bedside for ‘one last hug’.

Instead they were told their could say their goodbyes via video link.

The sisters wanted specialists at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust to keep providing life-supporting treatment until they could fly to the Midlands from their home in Canada.

The trust oversees City Hospital, in Birmingham; Sandwell Hospital and Rowley Regis Hospital – it is unclear which hospital is caring for the man.

The women – one in her late teens and two in their early 20s – wanted to give their 50-year-old father ‘one last hug’, the judge heard. They said their father, who is divorced from their mother and remarried, would have wanted them to say goodbye – but they estimated it would take three weeks for them to get to the hospital where he was being treated, given the Covid crisis.

But Mr Justice Hayden ruled doctors could lawfully stop providing treatment and move their father to a palliative care regime.

Specialists said the man had recently suffered a stroke, was in a coma and had ‘catastrophic’ brain damage.

They claimed further treatment would be ‘burdensome, invasive and futile’. The judge ruled that ending life-support treatment was in the man’s best interests and said he should be allowed to die with dignity.

Mr Justice Hayden considered evidence at a virtual hearing in the Court of Protection, where judges consider issues relating to people who lack the mental capacity to take decisions for themselves.

And he ruled the man could not be named in media reports of the case.

Bosses at the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust have responsibility for the man’s care and had asked to judge to rule what moves were in his best interests.

Mr Justice Hayden heard evidence, via video link, from the man’s second wife, brother and from his three daughters, who live with their mother in Canada.

One sister asked

Mr

Justice

Hayden: “Please keep him on the ventilator until we are able to come out.”

Another said: “We just want to hold him. We just want to give him one hug. We’ve forgotten what that feels like.”

Mr Justice Hayden said what had happened to the man was tragic – and heartbreaking for his family that it had happened during a pandemic.

And he said he had been “deeply moved” by what the man’s three daughters had said. “It is what any family would want,” he said.

“It is what any doctor would be able to facilitate. It’s what any judge would want to be able to achieve.”

But he said he had to decide what was in their father’s best interests, and said evidence showed that continuing life-support treatment would compromise their father’s dignity.