Boy Dies After High Court Rules Life Support Should Stop

A one-year-old boy at the centre of a legal battle over whether his life-sustaining care should continue has died after a UK High Court judge ruled his treatment should stop.

Ayden Braqi suffered from a “severe, progressive and irreversible neuromuscular disease” for which there is no known cure.

Lawyers for Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London, where he was being cared for, argued the burden of treatment “outweighed the limited benefits he could enjoy” from prolonging his life – while his mother opposed the bid, saying he still smiled despite his condition.

The High Court ruled it was not in Ayden’s interests to continue his treatment and his life support was turned off on Thursday.

Ayden died at the hospital “with his family around him”, shortly after the mechanical ventilation keeping him alive was withdrawn.

In a ruling published on Friday following Ayden’s death, Mrs Justice Morgan said: “I have taken account of the views of his mother that he should continue to have that care and her strong wishes in respect of this application.

“I must however take an objective view of Ayden’s best interests from his own point of view and from the point of view, in the widest sense, of his welfare.”

Ayden was admitted to GOSH when he was three months old and remained there for the rest of his life.

During a hearing last month, it was heard Ayden was “cognitively intact” and could “see, hear, smell, feel, and enjoy”.

His mother Neriman Braqi said in her evidence that she would sometimes spend around 16 hours a day with him.

Mrs Justice Morgan said Ms Braqi loved Ayden “with a devotion which is hard to put into words” adding that the case was one of “desperate sadness”.

She added that Ms Braqi had “fought unstintingly” for her son and “could not have done for him more than she has”. BBC