When doctors and parents disagree: A recent example of morally appropriate collaboration between parents, doctors and the court

摘要

How should disagreements - between paediatricians and parents - about the appropriateness of withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining interventions for gravely ill children be resolved? The question raises complex issues about what it means to say that a life-sustaining intervention is futile or overly burdensome or not reasonably available, about the scope of parental decision-making and about the role of the doctor as 'teacher' (for that is what the word 'doctor' means!). One specific debate concerns the value of involving the court which has a parens patriae jurisdiction. A recent Australian judgement gives one reason to think that this can be an effective, as well as a morally appropriate, tool for ensuring that treatment decisions are well made. In my view, the judgment in TS & DS v Sydney Children's Hospital Network ('Mohammed's case') [2012] NSWSC 1609 offers a model of best practice in contested decision-making about the treatment and care of a gravely ill child.