‘Exceptional circumstances’: Doctors ordered to continue woman’s futile life support
A court has ordered doctors to keep treating a woman they deem to have irreversible brain damage, while her family attempt to raise over $400,000 to transport her home to China while intubated.
The case before the Supreme Court of NSW involves newly married Xinyi Zhang who has been in a coma on life support at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney since 24 September after a car accident.
Her neurological and radiological findings point to catastrophic brain injury which she will not recover from, St Vincent’s neurosurgeon Dr Jacob Fairhall told the court.
But the hospital was unable to cease life support after Ms Zhang’s parents launched legal action to force the hospital to continue treating her until they can raise $430,000 evacuate her, while intubated, into the care of a neurosurgeon at Shanghai’s Huashan Hospital.