Pippa Knight: Doctors can stop treating brain damaged girl, High Court rules
Written by News on 08/01/2021
Doctors can stop providing life-support treatment to a five-year-old girl who is in a vegetative state, a High Court judge has ruled.
Pippa Knight initially developed normally after being born in April 2015, but in December 2016 she became unwell and began to suffer seizures.
A rare condition was diagnosed – acute necrotising encephalopathy – which led to brain damage.
Specialists treating Pippa at the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London advised that life-support treatment should end.
But the little girl’s mother, Paula Parfitt, disagreed, and wanted her to be placed on a portable ventilator and taken home.
Mr Justice Poole, who heard evidence in the Family Division of the High Court in December, ruled on Friday that life-support treatment should end and Pippa be allowed to die.
She has no awareness of her environment, he said.
Ms Parfitt’s lawyers said she was disappointed with the ruling and wanted Court of Appeal judges to consider Pippa’s case.
(c) Sky News 2021: Pippa Knight: Doctors can stop treating brain damaged girl, High Court rules
