JAN MOIR: Spare a thought for the doctors who looked after Archie Battersbee so devotedly with so little thanksBy the time you read this, Archie Battersbee may have died. Or he may still be clinging on to life, locked in a world where only machines keep him alive.
He has been in a coma since April, when he was hospitalised after, his mother believes, attempting the 'blackout challenge', a dangerous TikTok trend that has killed at least two other children.
Doctors believe Archie is brain-stem dead and, having exhausted every medical avenue over the past four months, they argued it would be better for the 12-year-old if he were allowed to die.
They wanted to switch off his life-support machine and let him go in peace. However, his parents, Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee, did not agree with this diagnosis — and a terrible battle ensued.
They took their fight to keep him alive to the United Nations, to the Supreme Court and finally to the European Court of Human Rights. The latter decreed that they would not interfere with previous court rulings, bringing the parents right back to square one.
Suffused with grief at her son's seemingly hopeless predicament, Miss Dance said some damning things about his NHS treatment.
'They haven't given Archie any care,' she complained this week.
One can understand her anguish while simultaneously appreciating that this is patently not true. Not just because Archie has been in an ICU for all this time at an approximate cost of £225,000 — not that the money matters.
It is more that medical teams at Barts and at the Royal Hospital in London have worked around the clock to keep Archie alive — but even the most dedicated ICU worker cannot perform miracles.
Hollie's words may be insulting and unfair, but she is swaddled in the blanket of compassion that the parent of every desperately ill child warrants, even if their ungratefulness sometimes grates. For emotions are running high and everyone understands that.
And we have been here before. Four years ago in Liverpool, a little boy called Alfie Evans had a neuro-degenerative disorder so rare it didn't even have a name.
He was treated at Alder Hey Children's Hospital for 15 months before doctors applied to have his life-support machine switched off. His parents convinced themselves the hospital was not fit for purpose and began a battle that went all the way to the Vatican.
The year before it was a baby called Charlie Gard. When doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital first suggested that further medical intervention would not be in Charlie's best interests, and that he should be moved to palliative care, his father and mother disagreed. They argued in the courts that their critically ill child, not yet one-year-old, should be allowed to undergo experimental treatment in the U.S.
Again, this request was denied, and in both cases it was the opinion of the doctors, and not the wishes of the parents, that prevailed.
And rightly so, because doctors must do what is in the best interest of their patients, not the interests of the distraught parents.
These life-or-death situations with sick children are difficult enough to witness from the sidelines. One can only imagine the horror of being an involved parent; helpless in the face of what they see as intransigent medical opinion, desperate to delay the approaching hour of death.
Perhaps that is why, unable to accept the inevitable, parents embark on these doomed legal manoeuvres. The meetings, the court appearances; it all gives false illusion of a battle the parents can fight, maybe even win.
Mum and Dad are not sitting around shredding their fingernails; they are squaring up to the doctors, who conveniently provide them with an enemy in clear sight. An enemy that is easier to combat than the dreadful, unwinnable situation that is the reality of their position.
The media attention on their struggle must be gratifying, too, as the world watches and the sick child becomes a cause celebre.
'The atmosphere at the hospital is very tense,' said a television reporter outside the Royal London Hospital yesterday morning. I bet it was.
perhaps one day, though, the parents might come to understand that these caring professionals are friends, not foes — instead of using legal battles as a kind of coping strategy.
At some point this week, the Battersbee family seemed finally to accept that time was running out for Archie. Yet the fight was still not over.
At the time of writing, they were pursuing a last request to move Archie to a hospice where he could 'die in peace'.
Doctors were against this, arguing that the child's unstable condition meant that moving him would be too big a risk.
A spokeswoman for his family said it was 'absolutely disgusting' that the family were 'not even allowed to choose where Archie takes his last moments'.
The word 'inhumane' was also tossed around.
But is it really disgusting? Or is it just that frail Archie might not survive the journey and would possibly die in pain and chaos in a hospital corridor?
One can see why moving Archie to the relative peace of a hospice room might be easier for his family, but it won't necessarily be easier for him.
In the end, in all these tragic cases, the law inevitably decides that the wishes of the parents are trumped by the learned opinion of the doctors.
In Archie's case, they have decided that the kindest thing of all would be to let nature take its terrible course.
Unlike Archie's parents, I don't see this as cruel or inhumane — but the very highest form of pure compassion that the medical profession can offer.
The loss for the Battersbee family is a devastating one, and they have all my sympathy.
But spare a thought for the doctors and medics who have looked after Archie devotedly and been given so little thanks for their efforts. They deserve our support and prayers, too.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11082377/JAN-MOIR-Spare-thought-doctors-looked-Archie-Battersbee-little-thanks.html
