Thursday 4 August 2022 06:22 PM JANET STREET-PORTER: There are no winners between Archie Battersbee's angry ... trends now

Thursday 4 August 2022 06:22 PM JANET STREET-PORTER: There are no winners between Archie Battersbee's angry ... trends now
Thursday 4 August 2022 06:22 PM JANET STREET-PORTER: There are no winners between Archie Battersbee's angry ... trends now

Thursday 4 August 2022 06:22 PM JANET STREET-PORTER: There are no winners between Archie Battersbee's angry ... trends now

The final days of 12-year-old Archie Battersbee are following a grim pattern we have seen many times before. Remember Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans? Chronically sick children whose parents refused to accept their babies would die, who took to social media conducting impassioned campaigns accusing the NHS of not trying hard enough. These parents gave daily press conferences and online updates, taking their battle through the courts in a futile attempt to gain control of their children’s lives.

The strength of their love and commitment is heart -breaking. Archie’s distraught parents have fought so hard to try to remove their brain-damaged son from the London hospital bed where he is being kept alive on a ventilator.

On social media their supporters claim that ‘more should be done’. That the NHS is failing a sick child, adding that foreign doctors might be able to bring about a change in Archie’s condition if he was taken abroad. Underlying everything is a dispute about how and when a sick child’s life should end. Poor Archie lies at the centre of it all, unconscious.

This phoney war around the final days of a sick child involves unscrupulous doctors seeking publicity for unproven cures and politicians like Donald Trump (who blabbed a vague offer of help for Charlie Gard) using a sick child for political gain. The Catholic Church can usually be relied for an opinion - the Pope said he was praying for Charlie - along with right wing pro-life and anti-abortion groups. Not to mention opportunistic countries like Turkey and Japan, anxious to promote their latest medical facilities with a high profile case they might fund for the coverage.

In the midst of all this, who benefits? The legal profession will be claiming far fees, fighting for distraught parents who refuse to accept that their child will die because there is no other option.

Now, a hospital ward has stopped being a place of healing and become a battleground. Doctors, nurses, and support staff find themselves pitted against angry and combative parents who believe they know best, who will use social media to fan support for their cause, and who will go to every court in the land- and eventually Europe- to try and take over the fate of their child.

Archie’s distraught parents have fought so hard to try to remove their brain-damaged son from the London hospital bed where he is being kept alive on a vent. Pictured: Archie Battersbee

Archie’s distraught parents have fought so hard to try to remove their brain-damaged son from the London hospital bed where he is being kept alive on a vent. Pictured: Archie Battersbee

In this situation, who is the winner?

Where’s the dignity in death when grieving parents call press conferences outside hospitals and claim their child is not receiving proper care, that he would be better treated elsewhere, even taken thousands of miles to Japan or Turkey?

In disputes like these, judges are being asked to rule on what is the ‘best’ outcome for a terminally ill child, and if that ruling doesn’t align with what parents are seeking, the process will be repeated all over again at vast expense until every option has been exhausted.

The European Court of Human Rights have said they will not overrule the original High Court decision- and so Archie’s life will end shortly after his ventilator is turned off. That could be as early as today.

Archie’s mother has gone back into to court to ask for her son to be removed from the London hospital where he lies,

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