UK court rules on seriously ill baby Luke

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London’s High Court has decided a seriously ill baby can be refused potentially life-saving mechanical ventilation if he stops breathing, mirroring a ruling for another critically sick baby earlier this month.

Ruth Winston-Jones, 35 from North Wales, had sought an order that doctors must resuscitate her young son Luke if his condition deteriorates.

But Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the High Court Family Division, said using mechanical ventilation on nine-month-old Luke, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, could make him dependent on it.

She added this would mean him losing his close contact with his mother which was the only thing making his life worth living.

However, Butler-Sloss said cardiac massage, in which a doctor compresses a patient’s chest to “squeeze the heart”, in a bid to re-start it, should remain an option.

Muiris Lyons, for Luke’s mother, told reporters Luke had a “very significant quality of life” and that his mother would continue to “fight for him and to stand up for him”.

Doctors at Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, where Luke is being treated, took the case to court because they wanted guidance on what to do if Luke stops breathing.

But Winston-Jones, who is separated from her husband and who has two other children, had accused them of “playing God”.

Earlier this month, a judge ruled that doctors need not resuscitate critically ill premature baby, Charlotte Wyatt, if her breathing stops again. Charlotte’s parents had also fought for an order preventing doctors allowing their daughter to die. 

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