A High Court judge has pleaded with a young woman suffering from anorexia to help him and her medical team save her life.
Mr Justice David Nolan spoke to the woman, who is aged in her mid-20s and says she wants to be allowed to die, before making orders permitting her to be force-fed by hospital staff.
He told the woman, who the court heard is dangerously underweight at 37.5kg, he had a constitutional obligation to look after her in circumstances where it was clear she lacked the capacity to make decisions about her own health.
“You know I’m placed in a very difficult position,” the judge said to the woman, who is in a Dublin hospital.
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“I know,” she replied.
She told the judge that while she could not see him, she had been listening to the in-camera court proceedings and could hear everything he was saying.
After hearing evidence about the woman being force-fed, Judge Nolan told her: “I know you are going through an awful lot of pain and all I can do is empathise with you.”
He said the orders he was going to make – permitting the woman’s sedation and physical restraint, if necessary, to allow continued feeding through a gastric tube – were extremely intrusive but for her benefit.
He told the woman the court had heard in evidence that she had been treated in hospital in 2023 for refusing to eat and had got better afterwards for a period.
“I have no doubt if you listen to the doctors and psychiatrists, and everybody who loves you so much, you will get better again,” he said.
“All we are trying to do is to get you into a healthy position where you can make decisions that will save your life.”
Mr Justice Nolan told barrister Sarah McKechnie, who appeared with Byrne Wallace Shields Solicitors for the hospital where the woman is being cared for, he was satisfied after hearing the evidence that it was appropriate to make the orders sought.
The court heard that the woman had expressed a wish to die, stating that she had suffered from anorexia since she was 14 and believed her life could not be saved by medical intervention. The woman requires a minimum of 1,400 calories a day but has refused to eat anything and would die within weeks if not fed by a gastric tube, the court heard.
She felt the treatment she was undergoing was a waste of time and a waste of the HSE’s money as her disease was telling her she could not survive the illness and did not require a weight gain plan.
The matter will return to court before Mr Justice Nolan on January 28th for review.
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