Doctors in end-of-life cases of two UK children can be named, court rules
|
Version 0 of 1. Parents of Isaiah Haastrup and Zainab Abbasi, who died in 2018 and 2019, have said they want to ‘tell their story’ Doctors in two end-of-life cases can be named, the UK supreme court has ruled, after the parents of two children said they wanted to “tell their story”. Isaiah Haastrup, aged 12 months, and Zainab Abbasi, six, were at the centre of life-support treatment disputes at the high court in London before their deaths in 2018 and 2019 respectively. During the proceedings, court orders were put in place preventing doctors involved in their care from being publicly named indefinitely. In a written ruling, the president of the supreme court, Lord Reed, said the need for restriction of freedom of speech must be “established convincingly” and that this had not been done by the two NHS trusts in the case. In the leading judgment, Lord Reed and Lord Briggs said: “Weight can be given to the importance of protecting the medical and other staff of public hospitals against unfounded accusations and consequent abuse. “However, the court should also bear in mind that the treatment of patients in public hospitals is a matter of legitimate public interest, and that the medical and other staff of public hospitals are public figures for the purposes of the [European convention on human rights], with the consequence that the limits of acceptable criticism are wider than in the case of private individuals.” In 2023, Zainab’s parents, Aliya and Rashid Abbasi, and Isaiah’s father, Lanre Haastrup, won a court of appeal fight to have the clinicians named, but this was challenged by the two NHS trusts involved, in Newcastle and London. After a hearing in April 2024, five justices at the UK’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that the clinicians could be named. Isaiah suffered “catastrophic” brain damage after being deprived of oxygen at birth following an emergency caesarean. Zainab was born with a rare and “profoundly disabling” neurodegenerative condition. The court of appeal heard that Abbasi and his wife wished to “tell their story”, to speak publicly about their experiences and to identify NHS staff while so doing. Speaking outside the supreme court after the ruling, Abbasi said: “Now, after six years of fighting in courts, we are finally allowed to tell our story.” Haastrup said doctors were “definitely overly protected”, adding: “Justice delayed is better than injustice. It’s a great feeling that Isiah’s life is not in vain.” The court declined an application from the trusts to continue the injunction for a further 21 days. It did not rule on how and when the naming should happen. It found that injunctions stopping doctors being identified should be of limited duration. Newcastle upon Tyne hospitals NHS foundation trust said it had sought to act in the best interests of patients while protecting the rights of its staff “to go about their professional duties and private lives without the potential threat of abuse or harassment”. It said it would “take some time to consider the judgment” and that it continued to “extend its condolences to Zainab’s family”. A spokesperson for King’s College hospital NHS foundation trust said: “We accept the ruling of the supreme court and we will continue to support our staff through this change. We remain sincerely sorry for the events surrounding Isaiah’s birth.” Dr Ben White, a deputy medical director at Medical Protection Society (MPS), said the decisions that doctors must make in paediatric end-of-life care “can be extremely difficult and the loss of a patient is devastating for all involved”. He added: “It is hard to see who benefits from publicly naming the individual clinicians involved in such decisions.” Doctors must protect patient confidentiality, making it “difficult for them to respond to questions or defend themselves against criticism”, he said. PA news agency contributed to this report |