X-Message-Number: 14093
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 22:24:14 -0400
From: Jan Coetzee <>
Subject: Judge orders doctors not to revive sick

Judge orders doctors not to revive sick
              baby

              London - A British judge has
              ruled that doctors should not
              prolong the life of a 19-month-old boy suffering from
              irreversible lung disease, rejecting a plea from the
child's
              parents in a ground- breaking ruling, press reports said
              on Thursday.

              The ruling is believed to set a precedent and was
              condemned last night by the parents and by
              anti-euthanasia campaigners, who said it placed
              vulnerable patients at even greater risk.

              Doctors said the boy was likely to die within weeks.

              The judge said that hospitals should provide him with
              "palliative care to ease his suffering", but should not
try
              to revive him as that would cause further unnecessary
              pain.

              Anti-euthanasia campaigners opposed the ruling.

              "This incredibly irresponsible judge has created a
              monstrous precedent which must be reversed
              immediately for the protection of all vulnerable patients
              whose lives are now ever more at risk from doctors who
              kill and then hide behind the medical profession's code
              of secrecy," Julia Quenzler of SOS told the Times.

              Gerard Wright, a senior lawyer with Alert, another
              anti-euthanasia group, said: "I am astonished that the
              judge should make a decision of this kind. It sets a
              dangerous precedent because it is all too easy for
              doctors to say there is no point fighting any longer."

              The court was told that when the boy was born
              prematurely he was found to be suffering from severe
              and irreversible lung disease as well as a brain
              abnormality, giving him a very short life expectancy.

              Britain's National Health Service has been hit by a series

              of scandals this year, including widespread allegations
              that junior hospital doctors are taking decisions not to
              resuscitate elderly patients without consultation with the

              families concerned.

              There have also been several criminal cases involving
              the murder of elderly patients, the rape of women by
              using anaesthetic drugs and the sexual molestation of
              young men. - Sapa-DPA

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14093