The sad story of Archie Battersbee
Archie Battersbee was a 12 year old boy from the UK, who after an accident was left in a coma with brain damage. After a short, yet hard fight, the hospital entrusted with his life chose to kill him. I will leave a link to a timeline of the events and full story.
What drew me to his story was how similar it sounded to many others stories I have heard over the years, of the NHS killing certain patients, any of them who can’t fight back, if they cannot communicate then they are not worthy of life, it seems. How it’s always in the patient’s best interests to die, for their dignity. Both these points are truly disgusting and it makes me feel sick, how some people can be so evil and dishonest. Life should never be given up on, our rights should not be lessened for convenience.
Lots of people are happy to play into the lies of the doctors, and say things like, think of his dignity, don’t let him suffer, think of him, etc. All empty words to make the writer or speaker of such words feel good about themselves. While these words mean nothing and are the words of a selfish fool and an unknowledgeable one at that.
In Archies case he was not in pain and as to dignity, what dignity is there in killing him slowly, or killing him at all. Surly Archie wanted to live, no matter the chances of his recovery.
It simply shows the true lack of love in the world, considering the unethical things that the NHS and the UK government spends our money and their time on, on our behalf doing, keeping the weakest and innocent alive is not much to ask for or expect.
The one last issue in this sad story is that the hospital refused to let Archie’s family take him to a local hospice to die with his family, in a friendly and caring place. Why, the hospital wanted to end his life, they don’t care do they. So why not let his family choose his place of death then, well as you cannot have cameras in a hospital, it hides the crime. If Archie’s family chose to film their child’s last couple of hours so the world would see what the hospital forced upon him and his family. Then all doctors and other staff in question would never show their faces in public again. What careless and hollow words they used to cover their lack of love and humanity, would be laid bare. Then change would begin to take place, something that most civil servants or administrators fear the most.
I hope this sad story does change things and after Archie’s death the mood did seem to change, and comments and commentators did seem to maybe rethink. We can hope and pray.
This video is of the family talking about Archies last moments.