The parents of Archie Battersbee are making a final plea for him to have “a dignified death”, as the legal battle over his life edges to its conclusion. Hollie Dance, the boy’s mum, said she wanted her son to be allowed to be transferred from hospital to a hospice so he can “spend his last moments” with his loved ones privately.
His family is due to lodge a final application on Thursday morning (August 4) to the High Court in London to transfer him out of the Royal London Hospital after the long campaign to prevent doctors withdrawing life support effectively ended when the European Court of Human Rights rejected their final application on Wednesday.
Speaking to Times Radio on the morning her son’s life support is due to be turned off, Ms Dance said that Archie’s loved ones have not been able to have privacy at the hospital, saying: “We can’t even have the chance to be in a room together as a family without nurses.”
She said: “There’s absolutely no privacy, which is why, again, the courts keep going on about this dignified death – why aren’t we allowed to take our child to a hospice and spend his last moments, his last days, together privately? Why is the hospital obstructing it?”
She said: “It’s going be awful today. I woke up absolutely sick to my stomach. Like I just feel this hospital have so much to answer for and I don’t really know what else to say today.”
Her son’s life support is due to be turned off at 11am. The 12-year-old has been in a coma since he was found unconscious at his home in Southend, Essex, on April 7 and is being kept alive by a combination of medical interventions, including ventilation and drug treatments, at the hospital in Whitechapel, east London.
Ms Dance believes Archie was taking part in an online challenge, and has not regained consciousness since. Barts Health NHS Trust has said the boy’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 wish to avoid, even with full intensive care equipment and staff on the journey”.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court said that Archie 'would die in the course of the next few weeks' even if life-sustaining support was continued. Judges rejected his parents' legal bid to block the withdrawal of his treatment.
In a statement they said: "Even if life-sustaining treatment were to be maintained, Archie would die in the course of the next few weeks through organ failure and then heart failure."
Read next:
- "I don't want another parent to go through the pain I have": The heartbroken people facing up to the reality of knife attacks
- Police to clamp down on 'youths wreaking havoc' on town centre during holidays
- The ruined castle and gardens in the Lake District with a playground kids will love
- 'Heavy fired' bread rolls sold in Greater Manchester market causing a stir on Facebook
