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Mom To Sue Hospital Where Baby Luke Died
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
December 12, 2005

HOLYHEAD, WALES--The mother of Luke Winston-Jones plans to sue Liverpool's Alder Hey hospital for clinical negligence in her 10-month-old boy's death.

Ruth Winston-Jones, 36, claims doctors should have done more to help her son stay alive instead of allowing him to die on November 12, 2004.

"Luke might be alive today if the doctors had made an effort to resuscitate him," she said. "This isn't about money, it's about getting justice for my son."

"The last year has been horrific, I can't believe they let my baby die."

Shortly after Luke was born, doctors predicted that he would live just a few days when they diagnosed him with three holes in his heart and with Edward's syndrome, also known as "trisomy 18". Many experts say that babies with the rare genetic condition usually die before reaching their first birthday.

Luke died just three weeks after the High Court Family Division ruled that doctors at the hospital could refuse to resuscitate him if he stopped breathing.

Many hospitals, doctors, and medical attorneys have maintained in recent years that resuscitating or keeping patients with severe disabilities or chronic medical conditions on life support for long periods of time seriously impacts the patients' "quality of life". Several disability rights groups, and other advocates in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, have argued that hospitals and doctors should not be the ones to judge the value of patients lives.

The High Court's decision was based in part on another court decision which allowed doctors to refuse a ventilator for Charlotte Wyatt, who was born three months premature, if she stopped breathing. Charlotte, now two years old, has improved to the point where the court last month reversed that order. Last week she went home for the first time for a two-hour visit.

Related:
"Baby Luke mother 'plans to sue'" (BBC News)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/4498958.stm

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