Australia: Ruling Pains Family of Man on Life Support

DARWIN, Australia (AP) — A judge ruled Wednesday that a hospital can remove a car accident victim from life support against his family’s wishes, saying the patient was unlikely to recover.

Paulo Melo, 29, from Darwin on Australia’s north coast, suffered brain and spinal injuries in a car accident on Dec. 5.

His family obtained a temporary injunction in the Northern Territory Supreme Court Tuesday preventing the Royal Darwin Hospital from switching off the life support system that is keeping him alive.

But on Wednesday, Justice Dean Mildren rejected their application for another extension to allow a Sydney neurosurgeon to assess Melo in person and give a second opinion.

“On the medical evidence before me, the case is futile,” Mildren told the court.

Mildren said the family had not provided any medical evidence that Melo would recover.

Paulo Melo’s sister Isabel Melo, who wept during the hearing Wednesday, said that her brother had begun responding to his family members by moving his eyes and head.

But she said doctors from out of state that the family had contacted were unwilling to contradict the Darwin medical staff without examining the patient in person.

“We haven’t been given the appropriate time to get the independent opinion that we seek,” she told reporters outside court.

“He responds to his family,” she added. “Doctors that I have spoken to . . . would not make the assessment without seeing the patient.”

Health Department spokeswoman Sonia Peters declined to say when Melo would be removed from life support.

“They are going to kill my son,” his sobbing mother, Amelia Melo, told reporters outside court.

The hospital’s medical superintendent, Len Notaras, said the family had been told Melo’s life support should be removed after more than 20 specialists agreed he would not recover.

“The clinicians involved have not at any time taken this matter lightly; they take it extremely seriously,” Notaras told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio before the court’s decision Wednesday.

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