Grandfather defends heart refusal

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/7729180.stm

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The grandfather of a terminally-ill 13-year-old girl who has refused a heart transplant has backed her decision.

Health bosses tried to force Hannah Jones, of Marden, near Hereford, to have the operation but she insisted she wanted to die with dignity.

Her grandfather Trevor Jones said she had "an old head on young shoulders" and could make her own mind up.

He said the family were still trying to secure insurance so that Hannah could go on holiday to Disneyland.

The holiday was offered to the family by the charity Caudwell Children.

I think the danger of going against Hannah's wishes was if anything had gone seriously wrong the family would have felt 'well, we forced her into that' Trevor Jones Hannah, who has a hole in her heart, had been offered a transplant in July 2007.

But she said she did not want to go through with it after taking advice from doctors.

She said the operation might not work, and if it did it would be followed by constant medication.

Mr Jones said he understood why his granddaughter had taken her decision and was not surprised by her maturity.

'Old head'

He said: "Quite honestly the treatment that she was receiving at the time upset me so much that I just couldn't go in the ward sometimes.

"I couldn't see her suffer like that. She always had an old head on young shoulders, she's still portraying that to this day.

"She knows what she wants, she knows what she doesn't want and nothing will move her."

He said the family could not countenance making Hannah undergo the operation.

"I think the danger of going against Hannah's wishes was if anything had gone seriously wrong the family would have felt 'well, we forced her into that'. I don't think that is the way we should operate."