It is hard to imagine something more chilling than knowing your doctors want to withdraw the treatment that is keeping you alive. Yet that is exactly what has happened to a nineteen-year-old woman, ST, who died on Tuesday 12 September.
As ST’s doctors had decided that her condition was hopeless, they asked the Court of Protections for approval to begin a “palliative care plan” that would stop the dialysis that was keeping ST alive. What is worse, the court ruled that ST’s disagreement with her doctors, meaning her wish to continue receiving dialysis and seek experimental treatment abroad, was a sign that she lacked mental capacity to make decisions for herself. Despite being an alert and conscious adult, her wishes to continue living could therefore be safely ignored by the NHS Trust.
