XY, Re [2024] EWCOP 37

Application for declarations concerning XY's medical treatment who is in a state of prolonged disorder of consciousness.

XY had been admitted to hospital in December 2023 with pneumonia but while there suffered a cardiac arrest which he probably would not have survived had it occurred in the community. As a result he suffered a significant hypoxic ischemic brain injury leading to an absence of any meaningful response to environmental stimulation. XY's children believe their father has greater awareness than the medical team and their Islamic faith led them to believe that questions of life and death lie entirely in the hands of Allah, not a doctor or a judge. They showed videos of what they believe is XY responding to stimulation but which the  doctors say are reflex responses generated in the spinal cord. The Trust was now seeking orders confirming that continued ventilation and clinically assisted nutrition and hydration (CANH), is no longer in XY's best interests.

Hayden J sets out the medical evidence, the legal framework and the evidence from the family. At [37] he describes the integrity with which XY had lived his life suggests he would not 'wish those who he has loved to believe that he was still there with them, in any meaningful sense, when the awful truth is that he no longer is'. At [38] he goes on to state that 'burdensome treatment of the kind contemplated here, can only be truly ethical where it can achieve benefit for the patient. Here, the treatment is futile.' Accordingly he makes the orders sought.

At [4] Hayden J also makes comments about the use of the term 'persistent vegetative state' which he now thinks is 'offensive to the dignity of the patient' and these days the term 'prolonged disorder of consciousness' should be preferred.

Read the judgment on Bailii