Mum’s anguish as judge tells doctors to stop trying to save disabled boy, 2

A DESPERATE mother broke down in court yesterday after a judge ruled that doctors should stop trying to save the life of her profoundly brain damaged twoyear-old son.

The child’s parents said through their lawyer that the decision ‘effectively condemns their son to death’.

The couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had fought a three-week High Court battle to compel doctors to continue trying to find a cure for his condition, which is unknown but thought to be deteriorating.

The little boy cannot walk, crawl, sit up, swallow or talk, and his breathing and hearing are ‘compromised’.

The NHS trust treating him said he used to giggle when he was tickled, but he can no longer do so. But his mother said ‘he still smiles’ and begged Mrs Justice Parker to order the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to continue with full treatment to try to improve his condition.

She told the court her son was an angel who ‘has good days and bad days, like everybody’, adding: ‘I give to him love and talk with him. I think he knows my voice.’

She said it was wrong for nurses to say he no longer smiles. ‘It is not true,’ she said. ‘ He is not smiling all the time, like before, but he still has smiles.’

Mrs Justice Parker ruled yesterday that the boy should in future receive only palliative care to ease his suffering as he dies.

She said: ‘No one is talking about bringing this little boy’s life to an end. The question is how vigorously we should strive to keep him alive.

‘If he was able to understand, I don’t think he would want to live in the way that he is living.’ The parents’ solicitor Kavi Mayor said after the ruling: ‘They believe their son’s life is worth saving. They are concerned that a prognosis has been given by the doctors when no firm diagnosis has been made.

‘They remain of the view that… the NHS trust have not explored all possible options.’

He added that the mother and father, who are from a European country, felt the attitude of medical staff and managers was ‘personal’. Mr Mayor said ‘they cannot understand why the NHS trust has made an application with respect to their son when they believe there must be other children in a worse condition’.

Medical specialists told the hearing in the Family Division of the High Court that the boy would gain no therapeutic benefit from ‘further invasive interventions’, which would be distressing. They said his disorder was unidentified and incurable.

The mother, who is in her 20s, and the father, in his 30s, have an older child who suffers from a similar condition and specialists think it might have a genetic cause.

Mrs Justice Parker concluded the parents’ hope that their son would live and that a cure would be found was ‘based on wishful thinking’.

Ruling in favour of the NHS trust’s application to reduce the boy’s treatment to palliative care, she said: ‘It is not in his interests for life to be artificially prolonged beyond its natural span.’ She added that she was ‘terribly sorry’.

‘He as good days and bad days’