The patient was a lady aged 59, suffering multiple sclerosis. She had lost mental capacity to make her own decisions many years before. She appealed against a refusal of an order allowing the doctors to bring her life to an end.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘The judge came to the conclusion was that in KH’s present state he was unable to say that life prolonging treatment would provide no benefit, and that death by, in effect, starvation would be even less dignified than the death which she will face in due course if kept artificially alive for more weeks or months or possibly years.’, and as a cort of appeal it was not proper to inrterfere with his assessment of the facts.
Brooke LJ VP, Clarke LJ, Maurice Kay J
[2004] EWCA Civ 1324, [2005] 1 WLR 834
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v James SC 30-Oct-2013
The hospital where a gravely ill man had been treated had asked for a declaration that it would be in his best interests to withhold certain life-sustaining treatments from him. When can it be in the best interests of a living patient to withhold . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Health
Updated: 23 November 2021; Ref: scu.517240