Parents go to court to continue care for "brain stem dead"

[no1novice]

Archie Battersbee has no prospect of recovery, court told

Published

1 hour ago

Hollie Dance with her son Archie

Hollie Dance and her family won the right to have Archie's case heard again

Doctors treating a 12-year-old boy at the centre of a life support dispute say he is "unresponsive" and will not recover, a court has heard.

Last month, a High Court judge ruled that Archie Battersbee, from Southend, Essex, was "brain-stem dead" and treatment could stop but his parents won an appeal for a new hearing.

His mother, Hollie Dance, said she believed he son was "fighting" to llive

Mr Justice Hayden is overseeing a new hearing at the High Court.

Archie has not regained consciousness since being found at home on 7 April. His mother thinks he may have been taking part in an online cchallenge



Doctors treating him at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London, had previously said they thought Archie was "brain-stem dead" and his ventilator should be disconnected.

Lawyers representing the Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, told Mr Justice Hayden tthatArchie had suffered a "devastating" brain injury and that specialists did not believe it was in his best interests to continue treatment.

Martin Westgate QC said: "All that treatment can do is delay the inevitable result."

He argued that continued treatment was "burdensome", "contrary to dignity", aand"ethically distressing" for medics treating hhim


Ian Wise QC, representing Archie's parents Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee, told Mr Justice Hayden it was hoped the youngster would make "some sort of recovery" and argued that continued treatment was not "futile".

Ms Dance told the judge she was "100%" sure Archie would want treatment to continue.

"If Archie gives up fighting his illness and dies, I can accept that," she said.

"But if we switch off the ventilator, knowing that Archie will die, I cannot agree to that.

"That little boy is fighting in my opinion. He cannot talk, he is unconscious. I am his voice. I am going to fight for him until Archie decides I can stop fighting.

"If it is God's will and Archie wants to give up, then let nature take its course."

Archie Battersbee

Image source, Hollie Dance

Image caption,
In June, a High Court judge ruled that Archie Battersbee was dead

Mr Wise said Archie would want a "natural" not a "choreographed" death and that his parents accepted it would be appropriate for the youngster "not to be resuscitated" if he suffered a cardiac arrest.

However, he added that the family thought that "in the interim" Archie had a "life worth living" and, "in the current circumstances... a life of dignity".

"In these circumstances, they see no need to precipitate his death," the lawyer said.

At a previous hearing in June, Mrs Justice Arbuthnot ruled that Archie had died and doctors could lawfully stop providing treatment.

BButArchie's parents said his heart was still beating and they wanted treatment to ccontinue

They challenged the decision in the Court of Appeal where three judges ruled that evidence relating to what was in Archie's best interests should be reconsidered by a different High Court judge.

The family's barrister on that occasion, Edward Devereux QC, had argued that evidence had not shown "beyond reasonable doubt" that Archie was dead.

The latest hearing continues.

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www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-62119015

I looked up the definition and it is this:-

Brain death (also known as brain stem death) is when a person on an artificial life support machine no longer has any brain functions. This means they will not regain consciousness or be able to breathe without support.

A person who's brain dead is legally confirmed as dead. They have no chance of recovery because their body is unable to survive without artificial life support.
Brain death is legal death

If someone's brain dead, the damage is irreversible and, according to UK law, the person has died.

It can be confusing to be told someone has brain death, because their life support machine will keep their heart beating and their chest will still rise and fall with every breath from the ventilator.

But they will not ever regain consciousness or start breathing on their own again. They have already died.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/brain-death/

[beeyotch]

Omg, like that girl, what was her name? Started with a J...forgot what happened to her.

This is incredibly sad but what is the use of keeping the shell of a person barely technically alive if they're not there?

*I had to look it up, it was Jahi McMath I was thinking of. Per Wikipedia: "Dolan issued a statement in June 2018 that McMath had died on June 22, 2018. She was having internal bleeding due to kidney and liver failure, so her doctors removed her from life support, allowing her heart to stop."

2018, she was on life support for 5 years, poor girl.

[no1novice]

It is horrible and the family must be having a horrible time but the one thing that gets me about these cases is any child/person that *needs* life support & has a good chance of recovery but does because of these type of parents that go to court (rightly or wrongly) to prolong the life of a brain dead & non-recoverable child; that resource is not available.

[trixie]

Makes me think of Terri Schiavo, although that involved a grown married woman but without a will or medical directive, her husband was next of kin and decision maker, which her parents refused to accept. Despite being in a persistent vegatative state, it took 15 years to finally remove her feeding tube. I remember most people online villainize the husband but I thought he did the right thing but both sides seemed to be at least somewhat motivated by the money they could make off this poor girl.

This one involves a minor so I assume no family members fighting each other but at what point are they on their own as far as medical care, which could be catastophic.

[no1novice]

Jul 11, 2022 21:47:59 GMT trixie said:

Makes me think of Terri Schiavo, although that involved a grown married woman but without a will or medical directive, her husband was next of kin and decision maker, which her parents refused to accept. Despite being in a persistent vegatative state, it took 15 years to finally remove her feeding tube. I remember most people online villainize the husband but I thought he did the right thing but both sides seemed to be at least somewhat motivated by the money they could make off this poor girl.

This one involves a minor so I assume no family members fighting each other but at what point are they on their own as far as medical care, which could be catastophic.

I think that is part of the reason that they have gone to court. It's legally allowed for the NHS to withdraw treatment (without charges) if the body is declared legally dead (as this poor kid has been).
If the judge rules in favour of the medical team the family could make arrangements to care for him privately but likely very expensive.

[kittylady]

Then you get cases like that of Tony Bland, the 96th Hillsborough Victim. The hospital and his parents had to go to Court to have life-sustaining treatment withdrawn after he'd been in a persistent vegetative state for nearly four years. The 97th victim, Andrew Devine, lived for 32 years after the disaster with the bare minimum of awareness.

I know that it's hard to let go but sometimes it's the kindest, cleanest, most compassionate thing to do. Unfortunately, in the internet age, we have bands of total fuck nuggets who jump on the bandwagon and do everything they can to discourage families from accepting that their loved one has reached the end of the road and enable them along the way - the cases of Jahi McMath, Charlie Gard and now Archie Battersbee are prime examples of this. And when the inevitable happens they simply look for the next bandwagon to jump on and forget about the devastation they have left behind.

[mrsfawlty]

Jul 11, 2022 23:13:25 GMT kittylady said:

Then you get cases like that of Tony Bland, the 96th Hillsborough Victim. The hospital and his parents had to go to Court to have life-sustaining treatment withdrawn after he'd been in a persistent vegetative state for nearly four years. The 97th victim, Andrew Devine, lived for 32 years after the disaster with the bare minimum of awareness.

I know that it's hard to let go but sometimes it's the kindest, cleanest, most compassionate thing to do. Unfortunately, in the internet age, we have bands of total fuck nuggets who jump on the bandwagon and do everything they can to discourage families from accepting that their loved one has reached the end of the road and enable them along the way - the cases of Jahi McMath, Charlie Gard and now Archie Battersbee are prime examples of this. And when the inevitable happens they simply look for the next bandwagon to jump on and forget about the devastation they have left behind.

Thank you for your comment. 
To me, little Charlie Gard highlighted something that some parents, and those 'fuck nuggets' who literally have no clue with regard to the medical/legal facts.
I certainly accept that contentious clinical v family decisions are best dealt with through the court system. 
Medical care has developed so much in recent times that a woman/girl that has a baby, developing in her womb, which is developing some kind of catastrophic medical condition would previously have miscarried or the baby would have died at, or soon after, birth.
Medical advances have enabled these babies to survive, in the womb, and be born. Tragically, medicine has not developed the ability to make a 'dead brain' function in order to sustain life or give that life any quality. 
Unlike a stroke which affects part of the brain, we have advanced sufficiently in the fields of Medicine, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Therapy, Psychology plus Nursing to enable other parts of the brain to take over the functions that were performed previously by the area affected by the Stroke. These functions can become so  efficient that the patient can improve enough that the patient can even live as independently as they did before the Stroke. 
Sadly for Archie, this is an impossibility. Letting go of a child is a cruel tragedy but for the child's sake, it's not living at all. 

[kittylady]

So after I logged off here and wasn't able to sleep thanks to it being sweatier than Satan's ball sack I had a little mooch about Reddit and ended up falling down a Reddit Rabbithole about this family that then lead on to other things.

- Hollie Dance is not the mother's real name. She was previously known as Lisa Pittaway and has several criminal convictions, including road rage and assault.

www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/5434597.southend-road-rage-woman-spared-prison/

www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/5542355.southend-blues-streaker-vows-to-keep-her-kit-on/

- Hollie/Lisa has also gone to the press at least twice before for 'incidents' involving her children. In she was complaining about her then-two year old, Thomas, falling and cutting his hand in a public telephone box that had been vandalised. In another she went to the Daily Mail after an apparent mix up at a Boots Pharmacy resulted in then-four year old Archie being given ear drops instead of eyedrops and ending up with a chemical burn to his eye after his mother used them without reading the box or the instructions.

Phone Box: www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/5470353.southend-toddler-hurt-by-phone-box-glass/

Eyedrops/Eardrops: www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2774629/Boy-four-suffers-agonising-burns-Boots-pharmacy-gave-ear-drops-eye-infection.html

- Hollie/Lisa has apparently been firing up "Archie's Army" on Facebook by making many unsubstantiated claims about the hospital that has the care of her son. There have been claims of general filth and faeces in IV lines, children being assigned beds on whether the staff want to save them or let them die, that the doctors and nurses are being nasty to the family and that they are deliberately attempting to starve Archie to death (they aren't - his bodily functions are breaking down to the point where the nutrients they are pumping in aren't being properly absorbed anymore). They have also tried to claim that the hospital has been using faked/other patient's medical records and scan results to hide the fact that Archie isn't brain dead.

- The Court case is being propped up by (what I would call a right wing group) Christian Concern. CC are against same sex marriage, transgender rights, abortion, homosexuality, among other issues that they consider to be liberal. They have funded (and lost) several cases, such as suing a school because a girl was asked to remove her purity ring (rings of any kind were against the school's uniform policy) and a case where an actress made claims of religious discrimination, harassment and breach of contract after she was dropped from the role of Celie in a production of The Color Purple after old homophobic tweets of hers resurfaced. It has been said that CC didn't take on the case until the whole family, including Archie, were hurriedly baptised at the hospital and Hollie/Lisa has since started claiming that Archie had been desperate to be baptised for a long time before the incident which ended with him in hospital.

- There is at least one Go Fund Me to pay for Archie's medical bills - except that he's being treated by the NHS, so there are no medical bills. Hollie/Lisa has now started saying that they'll use the money to give him a big funeral (that he also doesn't need because he's actually going to get better if the evil doctors stop trying to kill him so they can steal his organs /eyeroll) and anything left over will go to helping them move on with their lives. They are also selling t-shirts and bracelets on the now-locked down FB page.

What happened to this kid is incredibly, desperately sad and nobody should have to go through something like this but once you start doing a little digging about there seems to be a whole other something going on under the surface that suggests that it has become less about the child and more about an addiction to attention. There's a whole super long thread on a site called Tattle Life where posters have been documenting the case as it goes on. If you have a strong stomach, a brave heart and plenty of time you can read the thread via the link below.

tattle.life/threads/the-archie-battersbee-case.30881/

[waterslide]

This is a mess.

So...is there a possibility that this kid died of abuse and she's trying to make sure it's not a murder case? She "thinks" he died from an internet challenge? I mean this really reeks of Munchausen by proxy and flat out abuse. Just so many red flags: the GoFundMe for a funeral that, according to this woman will not happen, the selling of t-shirts and bracelets for Archie's Army, the creepy Christian Concern group, the prior neglect and stupidity. I really don't understand what the point would be for the hospital to lie to them about test results. The idea of the hospital is to send people away well and make room for new sick people, so yeah. That's nuts.

Also, how the hell does an IV line get feces in it?

[kittylady]

Jul 13, 2022 2:17:09 GMT waterslide said:

This is a mess.

So...is there a possibility that this kid died of abuse and she's trying to make sure it's not a murder case? She "thinks" he died from an internet challenge? I mean this really reeks of Munchausen by proxy and flat out abuse. Just so many red flags: the GoFundMe for a funeral that, according to this woman will not happen, the selling of t-shirts and bracelets for Archie's Army, the creepy Christian Concern group, the prior neglect and stupidity. I really don't understand what the point would be for the hospital to lie to them about test results. The idea of the hospital is to send people away well and make room for new sick people, so yeah. That's nuts.

Also, how the hell does an IV line get feces in it?

It doesn't. It seems that the mother has been making all kinds of claims on the FB group designed to outrage the followers and run down the medical teams/hospital. 

[waterslide]

Jul 13, 2022 2:56:36 GMT kittylady said:

Jul 13, 2022 2:17:09 GMT waterslide said:

This is a mess.

So...is there a possibility that this kid died of abuse and she's trying to make sure it's not a murder case? She "thinks" he died from an internet challenge? I mean this really reeks of Munchausen by proxy and flat out abuse. Just so many red flags: the GoFundMe for a funeral that, according to this woman will not happen, the selling of t-shirts and bracelets for Archie's Army, the creepy Christian Concern group, the prior neglect and stupidity. I really don't understand what the point would be for the hospital to lie to them about test results. The idea of the hospital is to send people away well and make room for new sick people, so yeah. That's nuts.

Also, how the hell does an IV line get feces in it?

It doesn't. It seems that the mother has been making all kinds of claims on the FB group designed to outrage the followers and run down the medical teams/hospital. 

Which is fucking bizarre and rude and not a good look to bash on hospital staff.  At least try to accuse the people trying to take care of your son with something that makes sense.  

[MsDark]

Jul 13, 2022 2:17:09 GMT waterslide said:

Also, how the hell does an IV line get feces in it?

It doesn't.  Heifer is lying.  Unless she's the one putting it in there.  They should put him in a room with a camera.

My first thought:  Here we go with another zombie child's body being kept alive just like poor Jahi McMath. 

The mother having found a way to make a living off of this is definitely a major factor here in this circus.

I guarantee they're not "starving" him.  If he's receiving less of whatever nutrients he's been on (via gastrostomy or intravenously) it's because his body isn't processing/clearing them as effectively (there are ways of assessing this) and they're trying to avoid him aspirating, becoming fluid overloaded or a host of other things that can go wrong when you're trying to "force feed" a dead body whose organs are slowly shutting down. 

What they're doing is prolonging his suffering.  

[waterslide]

^I have no doubt of any of that and I agree they should put a camera in the room.

It reminds me of another case in the UK where a mom faked her daughter's kidnapping. It's not exactly the same, because the girl ended up being rescued, but the mom really was basking in the attention and hoped to get a ton of money off the supposed abduction. I think she had gotten the idea from the Madeleine McCann disappearance.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Shannon_Matthews

[Sarzy]

Life-support treatment for 12-year-old Archie Battersbee can end, a judge has ruled.

Archie was found unconscious at home in Southend, Essex, on 7 April.

Doctors at the Royal London Hospital said he was "brain stem dead" and it was in his best interests to stop treatment, but his parents disagreed.

A different judge previously agreed with doctors and today Mr Justice Hayden also ruled in favour of the hospital.

He heard the case again in the High Court on Monday after the family went to the Court of Appeal, which ruled a new hearing was necessary.

Mr Justice Hayden said continuing treatment was "futile".

"It serves only to protract his death, whilst being unable to prolong his life," he said.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-62175556

I'm glad they made this decision. Poor Archie though. 

[kittylady]

The parent's legal counsel is already making noises about how they are going to appeal (again). Hopefully the application will be denied.