Judge rules that baby should be removed from ventilator and given palliative care

An eight week old baby should no longer be kept alive on a ventilator and should be given palliative care to spare him the risk of a “painful, agonising death,” a High Court judge has declared.1

There are no further treatment options for the baby, who was referred to in court as Z, said Mr Justice Hayden. The judge was satisfied that intensive care was futile and that it had “come to place an insupportable burden” on the child.

Hayden granted Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust a declaration that it would be in the best interests of the baby to leave intensive care and to have palliative care only. The trust had hoped to reach agreement with the child’s Muslim parents and avoid a court application. But because of …