A few weeks ago I was invited to deliver a memorial lecture at the Institute of Medical Ethics.
For the benefit of those who were unable to attend, here it is:
In January 2017 my daughter
Daisy was admitted onto the intensive-care unit at Great Ormond Street for the
last time. She was put on a ventilator
and it was clear that she was septic and her organs were beginning to shut
down. She had a cardiac arrest as the
physio therapist performed a bronchial lavage in an attempt to identify the bug
that was causing such havoc. I walked in
on the crash team working on her.
It is
possibly the worst thing I have ever seen, my little girl, just a few weeks
past her 12th birthday, limp like a rag doll as the crash team
performed CPR. They brought her back but
it was clear that this time, unlike all the other times, Daisy was not going to
leave PICU. Doctors and nurses worked on
her constantly. The consultant took me
to one side and told me what I already knew, the Daisy I knew would never come
back, there were options, they could start dialysis, they could keep
resuscitating but the outcome would be the same, all it would do was buy time. I already knew the answer.
