Thu Aug 31, 2023 – 8:31 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — A National Health Service (NHS) hospital was granted its request to have a conscious 19-year-old’s medical decisions made by the UK courts, arguing that the young woman’s desire to continue fighting to live is a “delusion” that leaves her unfit to make choices about end-of-life medical care.
The patient, a 19-year-old anonymously referred to as ST in the legal proceedings, suffers from mitochondrial depletion syndrome, a rare genetic condition in which the energy-producing mitochondria are severely deficient in the body’s cells. Though the disease has left her reliant upon dialysis, a feeding tube and a ventilator due to kidney damage, hearing loss and muscle weakness, the condition has not affected ST’s brain function, as first reported by The Daily Mail.
Despite the nature of her terminal illness, which doctors have recently described as “actively dying,” ST remains determined to do all she can to live as long as possible, including participating in experimental treatments in Canada. Knowing the reality of her prognosis, the young woman still told a doctor, “This is my wish. I want to die trying to live. We have to try everything.”
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