Wife Of Brain-damaged Pastor Loses Battle Over Life-Support Treatment: The wife of an evangelical pastor left with “very significant” brain damage after suffering a stroke while undergoing kidney dialysis 18 months ago has lost her battle to maintain life-support treatment for him.
The pastor, who is in his early 50s and in a coma was not named. He has been under the care of Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, which is based in Salford.
The health authority has concluded that the pastor’s treatment should cease, asserting that there’s “no scope” for rehabilitation, and thus, continuing treatment would not be in his best interests.
However, the pastor’s wife and family who had a different viewpoint from the authorities went on to file a legal action. The pastor’s family believes that only the “act of God” could determine death. They stressed that the pastor’s faith would lead him to seek treatment for as long as possible.
Notwithstanding this, after a recent court trial, Mr Justice Hayden who is overseeing the case aligned with the NHS Trust and ruled that the doctor’s decision to discontinue giving the pastor treatment was “well-founded.”
“There is, in truth, no alternative,” he said. “Everything possible has been done,” he added.
Acknowledging the family’s faith, the Judge stated he understood that the pastor was “a man who lived his life by the Pentecostal sword and would have wanted to die by the Pentecostal sword in accordance with his Pentecostal beliefs.”
“(He) would have chosen to continue his life-sustaining treatment even in the face of coma,” he said.
However, Mr. Justice Hayden continued by saying that while an individual’s wishes and feelings “weighed heavily,” they were “not to be regarded as determinative.”
He also requested medics to delay ending treatment until relatives had been given a chance to say their goodbyes.