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.
This End of life guidance covers three main issues: contemporaneous and advance refusal of treatment; withholding and withdrawing life-prolonging medical treatment; assisted dying - euthanasia and assisted suicide.
A terminally-ill 13-year-old girl has persuaded a hospital to abandon legal action that could have forced her to have a potentially life-saving heart transplant against her will. Hannah Jones, who suffers from a rare form of leukaemia, told doctors that she believed the treatment was too risky and that she would prefer to enjoy her remaining days in the company of family and friends. But in complex right-to-die case, her local hospital began High Court proceedings to temporarily remove her from her parents' custody to allow the transplant to go ahead.
Recent research has shown the advantages for children’s welfare of open fetal surgery over postnatal treatment for myelomeningocele. However, a balance must be struck between complications of premature birth risked by prenatal surgery & the long-term advantages for affected children’s health, including mobility & neurological capacity. Risks for women are repeated surgery for intervention & delivery. The research raises legal & ethical questions about how fetal interests should influence women’s choices, & whether women may decline interventions in their pregnancies that offer their children lifelong advantages. Beyond fetal interests & women’s preferences are state interests in fetal life, which have been expressed in judicially authorized cesareans. Underlying issues are the nature of fetal interests, contrasting entitlements to care from their mothers of fetuses & born children, healthcare providers’ responsibilities toward fetuses, & duties to pregnant women.