Test to ‘determine whether 12-year-old boy is dead’
Specialists will this week carry out a test to try to establish whether a 12-year-old boy at the centre of a lifesupport treatment dispute after suffering “catastrophic” brain damage in an incident at home is dead, hospital bosses have said.
A High Court judge concluded late on Friday that a brainstem test would be in Archie Battersbee’s best interests after a doctor told her that the brain stem was responsible for the functions which kept people alive.
Mrs Justice Arbuthnot was told that specialists treating
Archie at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London, thought it “highly likely” the youngster was dead.
A spokeswoman for the hospital’s governing trust, Barts Health NHS Trust, said, after the private hearing in the Family
Division of the High Court in London, that a brain-stem test would be arranged for next week.
Hollie Dance, who wept as Mrs Justice Arbuthnot delivered her ruling, has told how she found her son Archie with a ligature over his head on April 7, and thinks he might have been taking part in an online challenge. “There’s not been enough time to see what he can do,” said Miss Dance after the ruling. “He has squeezed my fingers with a tight grip. I think that’s his way of letting me know he’s still here and just needs more time.”
Miss Dance added: “Until it’s God’s way I won’t accept he should go.”
Mrs Justice Arbuthnot, who heard that Archie had suffered “catastrophic” brain damage, said Archie’s family, and clinicians, needed to know the results of the brain-stem test.
“I understand on a human level the family’s anguish,” she said.
Mrs Justice Arbuthnot oversaw a private hearing but said Archie could be named in reports.