‘It’s the end, isn’t it?’ ... mother’s agony as last-ditch bid to save Archie is thrown out
She admits ‘dignified passing at a hospice’ awaits schoolboy after European court refuses to step in
ARCHIE Battersbee’s family last night conceded defeat in their fight to keep the schoolboy alive.
Speaking after the European Court of Human Rights refused an 11th-hour application to keep the 12-year- old on life support, his mother Hollie Dance admitted a ‘dignified passing at a hospice’ was all she had left to fight for.
‘It’s the end,’ she told reporters outside the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, East London, where Archie is being treated.
Fighting back tears, she said: ‘It was the last thing, wasn’t it? And again our country have failed a 12year-old child.
‘I would like him out of here as quick as possible, and in a peaceful hospice to say goodbye and spend time with his family, uninterrupted by the noise and chaos.’
The family had asked the European Court of Human Rights to take their case and order Archie’s doctors to keep him on life support until it reached a decision. But the Strasbourg court rejected their application and said the case was ‘inadmissible’.
Its president said it would not ‘interfere’ with a series of rulings from British courts that the severely brain-damaged boy should be removed from life support. The decision means the hospital could now stop all treatments, including his ventilator, although it is
‘Why can’t we give him a chance?’
expected to give his family time to come to terms with the decision.
Miss Dance, 46, said: ‘This is another heart-breaking development in our fight for Archie’s right to live.’
He has been in a coma since he was found unconscious at his home in April. His mother has blamed the incident on him taking an online ‘blackout’ challenge.
Doctors treating him have said his brain stem is dead and he has no hope of recovery.
The family had earlier hoped to fly him abroad for treatment after receiving offers of help from doctors with ‘high success rates’.
‘We have been contacted by doctors in Japan and Italy who say they are willing to treat Archie,’ said Miss Dance. ‘Why can’t we give him a chance?’
It is understood the family also had contact with a professor of neurosurgery in Taiwan, ShinnZong Lin, who has carried out research into the effects of stimulation on patients with acute brain damage.
But Miss Dance said: ‘The NHS, the Government and the courts in this country and Europe may have given up on treating ti him, hi but bt we have not. The whole system has been stacked against us.’
She added that she and Archie’s father Paul Battersbee would ‘fi fight ht to t the th end’ d’ for f their th i son. They would need permission to remove Archie from the Royal London Hospital. During court hearings, Barts Health NHS Trust said s it would be dangerous to move him as it risked him dying without his family being able to be with him.
Lawyers for the trust said he was kept alive by a ventilator and drug treatments, and that he could suffer organ failure and heart failure within w weeks.
Medical experts cast doubt on the t prospect of Archie receiving new n treatment abroad. Alastair
‘No known antidote’
Sutcliffe, a professor of paediatrics at University College London, said: ‘Archie does not have a rare disease where one country has access to a cure and others do not. He has brain damage from asphyxia/hypoxia and there is no known antidote to that in such a severe case.’
Neena Modi, a professor of neonatal medicine at Imperial College London, said offers of third party interventions were often made without full knowledge of the case, giving ‘false hope to grieving parents, adding to their anguish’.