Doctors will be allowed forcibly to sedate the 55-year-old woman in her home and take her to hospital for surgery. She could be forced to remain on a ward afterwards. The case has sparked an intense ethical and legal debate. Experts questioned whether lawyers and doctors should be able to override the wishes of patients and whether force was ever justified in providing medical care.
A cancer patient who has a phobia of hospitals should be forced to undergo a life-saving operation if necessary, a High Court judge has ruled. Sir Nicholas Wall, sitting at the Court of Protection, ruled doctors could forcibly sedate the 55-year-old woman - referred to as PS. PS lacked the capacity to make decisions about her health, he said. Doctors at her NHS Foundation trust had argued PS would die if her ovaries and fallopian tubes were not removed. Evidence presented to Sir Nicholas, head of the High Court Family Division, said PS was diagnosed with uterine cancer last year.
The 30-year-old, known only as SB, could die without emergency treatment for aplastic anemia, a condition in which her bone marrow does not reproduce enough new blood cells. The Court of Protection has now ruled that doctors can restrain SB and force her to undergo the arduous but potentially life-saving treatment, which is administered through a vein in the heart and lasts for five days. SB has been detained under the Mental Health Act. Family Division judge Mrs Justice Hogg ruled that the patient did not have the capacity to make up her own mind over whether to undergo the treatment.
A high court judge in England has ordered that doctors can force a woman without the capacity to decide for herself to have lifesaving treatment for aplastic anaemia. Mrs Justice Hogg made the ruling in the Court of Protection after an unnamed NHS trust applied to the court with the backing of the Official Solicitor, who looks after the interests of those lacking capacity. The judge said the 30 year old woman, named only as SB, who is detained under the Mental Health Act, has a serious psychiatric disorder and lacks the capacity to decide for herself whether or not to have the potentially lifesaving treatment.
More than 11,000 people were deprived of their liberty last year using controversial new legislation that critics have argued is “not fit for purpose”. New figures released by the Department of Health reveal how local authorities and hospitals are increasingly relying on so-called Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard (DoLS) orders to detain people for their own safety.