A High Court judge has said he can do no more for a boy who is refusing treatment for advanced cancer that he insists he does not have. Mr Justice Peter Kelly also refused the mother’s request to force her son, who turns 18 next year, to be treated.
The HSE applied earlier this year to have the boy made a ward of court in order to facilitate his treatment. When the case returned before Mr Justice Kelly on Thursday, he was told by Stephen Brady, for the HSE, that the youth has failed to attend several chemotherapy appointments and that at one appointment he did attend, earlier this month, he refused the treatment, appeared not to fully understand his diagnosis and sometimes laughed inappropriately. He was told there was a danger of relapse if the treatment was broken up.
Natalie McDonnell, for the general solicitor for wards of court, said that they had difficulties contacting the boy and had a number of concerns, including his drug use and his threat to sue the HSE, alleging misdiagnosis.
Tim O’Leary, representing the youth’s mother, said she wanted to do her best for him but was at her wits’ end.
Mr Justice Kelly, the president of the High Court, said in his ruling that the boy appeared to have “almost a death wish” but was in his 18th year and had been told many times why the treatment was necessary. The judge added that he understood the family situation was not good, but no secure unit in the State treated cancer, and an oncology department could not become a prison when there was already “huge expenditure of time and effort” by doctors and social workers and the boy “just will not co-operate”.
Because there was no order he could usefully make, he would discharge the wardship protection. All involved had done their best, he said, and no more could be done if the youth was unwilling to be treated.
The judge added that the care, attention and concern of everybody involved in the boy’s treatment were “second to none” and that, were the youth to accept treatment, there was a good prospect of being cured.
