Local News

Archie Battersbee’s life support to continue as the family submit a hospice application

The 12-year-old boy has been in a coma since April after his mother, Hollie Dance, found him unconscious at their home. Judges have heard how he was discovered with a ligature over his head, and Ms. Dance believes he took part in an online challenge.

Archie Battersbee’s life support will not be withdrawn yet after his family launched a High Court bid to move him to a hospice.

His parents received a deadline of 9 am on Wednesday night to submit the request; else, his treatment would have been stopped at 11 am.

The family’s application seeks to have Archie transferred from the hospital to a hospice so that he may die “with dignity.”

In a statement his mother, Hollie Dance, said: “I pray that the High Court will do the right thing.

Pic: Hollie Dance

“If they refuse permission for us to take him to a hospice and for him to receive palliative oxygen it will simply be inhumane and nothing about Archie’s ‘dignity’.”

Since his mother found him unconscious at their Southend, Essex, home in April, the 12-year-old kid has been in a coma.

His Royal London Hospital doctors claim he is brain-stem dead and that keeping him on life support is not in his best interests.

Barts Health NHS Trust has said Archie’s condition is too unstable for a transfer and that moving him by ambulance to a different setting “would most likely hasten the premature deterioration the family wishes to avoid, even with full intensive care equipment and staff on the journey”.

According to Sky News, Archie’s family is expecting a High Court hearing about their request for him to be taken to a hospice at 3.30 pm today.

Archie must stay at the Royal London Hospital when his treatment is stopped per a High Court ruling issued in July.

However, a family spokeswoman said a hospice has agreed to take him and added: “Archie is now obviously on palliative care so there is no reason whatsoever for him not to take his last moments at a hospice.”

After Barts Health NHS Trust, which monitors the Royal London Hospital where Archie is getting treatment, informed his family that his treatment would be discontinued at 11 a.m. today unless they submitted an application to move him to a hospice, his family made their most recent High Court request.

Pic: Hollie Dance

It insisted: “Any application will be opposed on both a procedural basis and best interests basis.”

The trust said it “continues to put Archie’s welfare and best interests at the forefront of its decision-making about his care. It believes that Archie’s condition is unstable and that transferring him even a short distance involves significant risk”.

The Court of Appeal turned down the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities request to delay the withdrawal of treatment until it could review the matter a day earlier.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button