Mohamed Bouchenafa fights to prevent doctors from interrupting the care that keeps his daughter alive. He seized in summary the administrative court of Marseille.
Vincent Lambert, Jean Mercier, these names remind the French of recent family dramas about the end of life. And this Tuesday, it’s a new affair that hits the headlines.
The story takes place this time in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), with a baby at the center of the conflict. It is Mohamed Bouchenafa, the father of 1-year-old Marwa, who is fighting to prevent doctors from ending the treatment that keeps his daughter alive. In The Parisian, we learn that the young patient has recently been the victim of a devastating virus. It caused severe neurological damage and resulted in the failure of several organs including the heart. Since September 25, she has been hospitalized at the Hospital de la Timone, where she is placed in an artificial coma.
On November 4, an ethics meeting of the hospital service proposed, unanimously, to interrupt care other than comfort, and to disconnect the respiratory system that keeps the little girl alive. A decision, however, taken against the advice of his family.
Medical expertise requested
Monday, Mohamed Bouchenafa thus decided to seize, in interim relief, the administrative court of Marseille. An incomprehensible decision for the Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille (AP-HM) which confides to the Parisian: “Parents see their child moving, but that does not mean that there is a state of consciousness, nor that he does not ‘there is no irreversible neurological damage,’ explains Me Christel Schwing, one of the lawyers for the institution. The latter does not hesitate to use the word “therapeutic relentlessness” to describe the care of the child.
A point of view that public opinion obviously does not share. The Bouchenafa family has, it is true, already collected nearly 3,000 signatures after launching a petition of support on the Internet. Pending the court decision, Me Samia Maktouf, the family lawyer, requested a medical expertise.
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