Doctor told me to inject my Billy with morphine and let him slip away
THE mum of cannabis oil battle boy Billy Caldwell today claims a doctor offered morphine and told her to “let him slip away” when he was a baby.
Charlotte Caldwell says she was given repeated chances to euthanise her son – and take comfort from the fact his brain could be used for medical research.
She alleges one doctor approached her with a syringe driver to pump morphine into little Billy and told her it “would all be over in a moment”.
Charlotte claims she came under such pressure that she feared leaving her baby alone during a 16-week stay in the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children.
And she stayed with Billy at all times – “like a tiger protecting her cub”.
The mum, battling for a new UK law to legalise medicinal cannabis, still has Billy’s clinical notes from the time and says: “They show he was being treated with palliative, end of life care.
“At four months old I was told Billy was doomed, I was informed repeatedly that his life would be short and painful. I was advised I could administer a fatal dose of morphine to let Billy slip away.
PLUNGE
“No one mentioned killing him or euthanising him, just helping him ‘slip away’. But it was me that would do it, I’d have to plunge an overdose of morphine into his little body and watch him die.
“No one would report me, that was understood, no one would help me other than provide the overdose. I remember the conversation word for word.
“I remember the silence. I remember my shock as the meaning of the conversation filtered into my brain. It chilled me to the bone 12 years ago. It still chills me to the bone when I recall it today.”
Charlotte’s allegations come in the wake of the scandal at the Gosport War Memorial Hospitalin Hampshire, England, where 650 patients died from possible painkiller overdoses.
Billy, from Castlederg, Co Tyrone, was born prematurely at 32 weeks. He did well after leaving hospital but seizures started at four months.
Single mum Charlotte says: “Doctors tried to treat Billy but nothing worked and eventually he was just drugged with sedatives. He had intractable, drugresistant epilepsy. We were admitted to hospital when he was four months. My boy was desperately ill but fighting and his greatest champion was me, his mum.” But she claims: “Members of the medical world thought differently. I was told death would be a relief for Billy and I should take comfort from the fact it wouldn’t be in vain as they wanted me to donate his brain to science. I was told I’d have it returned five to eight weeks later, so I could bury his body and brain together.
“It was all so matter of fact. But this was my baby, my little boy. He was sick but he was alive and fighting. There was nothing anyone could have said to me to let him go while he fought on.”
Charlotte recalls the moment one doctor approached with a syringe driver.
She alleges: “I had Billy in my arms and I was rocking him. He had just come out of a seizure. The doctor came up and he looked so calm and kind. He told me Billy was on morphine for pain relief and showed me a syringe driver. It became clear what was being offered to me when he said it was his professional opinion that it would be better for Billy and better for me if we let him slip away.
“He said he could leave the syringe driver with me to use on Billy and it would be all over in a moment. No more pain, no more seizures, no suffering.
“He was giving me the chance to euthanise my son, take his life, overdose him with morphine, kill him, hold him in my arms and watch him die. It was never an option. My maternal and protective instincts were fierce. I’d have died for him, I was never going to kill him. The
moment that doctor said those words the message was clear: Billy’s life was of no value. He would be of more value dead than alive, more value as a brain to dissect, a science project.
TERRIFIED
“I remember telling the doctor, ‘Absolutely not, absolutely not’. I just repeated it over and over again. But I was terrified.
“We were in hospital for 16 weeks and they worked on me the whole time, trying to wear me down. But I can’t be worn down. I was afraid Billy might be allowed to die. I refused to sign a Do Not
Resuscitate form but it was left with me. They reminded me regularly.
“I was afraid to leave Billy alone. He was so vulnerable but I wasn’t about to give up on him.
“He was fighting hard to stay with me and I felt like a tiger protecting her cub. I knew if I got him out of hospital, he’d live. I just had to sit it out.
“The moment I was told it would be better for everyone if Billy was allowed to slip away, I had the most overwhelming feeling. A mixture of love, protection and determination, the absolute need to do everything to help Billy. That feeling carried me every day. It never wavered. It never will.”
Charlotte and Billy, who is 13 next month, touched the nation’s heart a fortnight ago after cannabis oil which controls his seizures was confiscated.
His condition then plummeted and the oil – illegal here but available in other countries – was returned, triggering a debate about legalising it in the UK. Charlotte and Billy have been backed for years by an NHS doctor, who wishes to remain anonymous. The medic says: “If the advice had been taken by Charlotte, Billy would not be here.
“It concerns me as to how many other Billys there may have been out there, other Billys who did not make it.
“As doctors we must not play God. Offering a syringe driver to a new mum of a sick baby is simply not right.”
A hospital spokesman said yesterday: “Euthanasia is illegal in the UK and no one in the RBHSC or wider Belfast Trust would encourage or facilitate this.”
I was shown syringe driver and was told it would be over in a moment... no more pain CHARLOTTE CALDWELL MUM ON CLAIM DOC OFFERED DRUG