Archie Battersby’s family has said they intend to file an application in the High Court to move the 12-year-old child to hospice.
Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs the Royal London Hospital where Archie is being treated, has said his life support will be withdrawn at 11am on Thursday, until about 9am on the move to hospice. till the application is not submitted.
Archie is currently being kept alive by a combination of medical interventions, which include ventilation and drug treatment.
On Wednesday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rejected an application by her parents to prevent her from withdrawing her life support treatment.
The Strasbourg Court of Appeals was the last legal course available for Holly Dance, 46, and Paul Battersby, 57, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, after Britain’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the withdrawal of Archie’s life support and It’s getting delayed. would not be in his interest.
In a statement released via Christian Concern following the human rights court’s decision, Dance said: “This is another heartbreaking development in our fight for Archie’s right to live.”
She reiterated that doctors in Japan and Italy had contacted her about her son’s condition, adding: “Why can’t we give him a chance?” Nritya reiterated her vow to “fight till the end” and said that the family wanted to take the boy to a hospice “but the hospital has said we cannot do so despite previous promises”.
Now Barts Health NHS Trust has allowed parents to make a legal bid to move her to hospice.
In a statement reported by Sky News, it said: “Any application will be opposed on procedural grounds and on the basis of best interest.”
The Trust said it “continues to put Archie’s welfare and best interests at the fore in making decisions about his care. It recognizes that Archie’s condition is unstable and that there is significant risk involved in relocating him even a short distance away.”
But it said the treatment would continue till any legal appeal is heard.
A spokesman for Archie’s family told PA: “We think it is absolutely barbaric and absolutely disgusting that we are not even allowed to choose where Archie takes his final moments.
“Hospices are well and truly designed for palliative and respite care. Archie is now clearly on palliative care so he has no reason not to spend his final moments in a hospice. Dharamshala has said that they will take her away.”
Archie’s parents applied to the Strasbourg court for “interim measures”, an immediate action ordered by the court in exceptional cases where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.
Such measures typically call for the applicant to suspend expulsion or extradition while the case is considered, as in the case where the government’s first deportation flight to Rwanda was halted. In Archie’s case, the ECHR decided they were not suitable, considering the application inadmissible.
It said: “The court shall not interfere with the decisions of the national courts to allow the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from the AB. [Archie Battersbee] To move forward.”
Archie has been in a coma since suffering a catastrophic brain injury on April 7. Dance, who was almost constantly at his bedside since then, believes it was due to his suffocation while taking part in the viral social media challenge.
Doctors assumed he was brain-stem dead and should be removed with mechanical ventilation, but his parents argued that according to Archie and his own Christian beliefs, treatment should continue as long as his heart continued to beat. was.
A high court judge ruled, contrary to her parents’ wishes, that medics could withhold her life support, a legal stay that prevented the decision from taking effect, on July 25 by the Court of Appeals to them. was extended to give an opportunity of appeal. to ECHR. He chose instead to apply to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Intervention for Persons with Disabilities, believing it offered a better chance of success.
However, when the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the convention under which the committee operates was not part of domestic law, the ECHR was the last remaining option to prevent the hospital from diverting Archie’s life-support treatment.
Archie was described by a judge as having an “infectious zest for life”. He was a talented gymnast and a lover of mixed martial arts. His parents said he wanted to be baptized and told a family member that he would not want the treatment to be removed in such a situation.
Judges of the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, respectively, held that their beliefs and wishes were properly taken into account, but ultimately determined that there was no chance of recovery that continuing mechanical ventilation was at their best. was not in the interest.
The Supreme Court said it took its decision “with a heavy heart” in the matter “every parent’s nightmare – the loss of a much-loved child”.
PA Media contributed to this report