A woman is to have part of a leg amputated against her wishes after a judge ruled it was in her best interests.
In the Court of Protection, Mr Justice Bodey ruled the woman, reportedly in her fifties, did not have the mental capacity to make the decision and should have “opportunity to live”.
The Judge concluded the surgery on the infected limb would be in her best interests and the amputation could save her life.
According to The Irish News, the judge heard from medical experts and from the woman’s two adult children before reaching a decision. He had also visited the woman at the hospital where she is being cared for to hear her views first hand.
According to doctors, the woman had sepsis in her lower right leg, with the infection entering the bone and causing renal failure. The woman thought that “due to her religious belief” God would heal her, the judge was told.
She had been given antibiotics but had refused further treatment, he heard. The judge said he had told her that doctors felt that the options were “surgery and go home” or “she would die”. She had told him that “doctors had been wrong previously” and said she “didn’t want the operation and would rather die”, and that God would “heal her miraculously” – she had also thought that God had paid her mortgage when she had been in hospital on a previous occasion.
He said her beliefs were delusional – not the product of a deeply held religious faith: “I have concluded, in the end very firmly, that (she) should be given the opportunity to live. That can only be by amputation – even though that is not what she would have wanted and even though it will leave her, probably, wheelchair-bound.”
