BRITAIN: Legal challenges dealing with crucial issues of hospital treatment, the right to die and medical ethics were being heard in two separate court cases in Britain yesterday.
As the parents of a three-month old baby girl born with severe facial disfigurement dropped their opposition to emergency medical treatment at a Newcastle hospital, an emotionally charged case began in London of a paralysed woman arguing for the right to die.
In what is thought to be the first case of its kind, the woman, identified only as Woman B, is asking the High Court to rule in her favour to refuse life-prolonging treatment. The case differs from that of Mrs Diane Pretty - who suffers from Motor Neurone Disease - who also went to court asking for the right to die, because her husband or someone else would have had to take active steps to end her life, actions that amounted to assisted suicide.
In an unusual move, lawyers from the High Court travelled to a London area hospital where Woman B is being treated to listen to her testimony. She told them: "I want to be able to die."
Sitting up in her hospital bed, the woman, who cannot breathe without the support of a ventilator following the rupture of a blood vessel in her neck that left her paralysed from the neck down, said she was sure of her decision. Asked by her lawyer if it was her wish that she did not want to be ventilated any longer, Woman B replied: "That is right" Under the law in England and Wales competent adults have the right to refuse treatment but the doctors treating Woman B have opposed her wishes on ethical grounds.
An anaesthetist caring for Woman B said the main issues facing the medical team were "legal and ethical" and whether turning off the ventilator would lead directly to her death.
"We have all got to know her over the year and this is now more than a doctor/patient relationship," the anaesthetist told the High Court which is expected to reserve judgement in the case later today.
"I don't think an intensive care environment is the place for a patient to make a decision such as this."
At the same time, agreement was reached between doctors and the parents of a baby girl, who was born with the disfiguring facial condition Goldenhar's Syndrome, about her future treatment.
The baby's parents, Ms Suzanne Taylor and Mr Aziz Rafi, said plans to perform an emergency tracheotomy to help her breathe were unnecessary but social services obtained an emergency protection order to prevent the child being removed from the hospital.
After more than eight hours in court the parents agreed the treatment could go ahead.