| R (B) v Cambridge Health Authority | |
|---|---|
 Bone marrow biopsy | |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Keywords | |
| Health, bone marrow | |
R (B) v Cambridge Health Authority [1995] EWCA Civ 43 is a UK judicial review and enterprise law case, concerning health care in the UK.
| R (B) v Cambridge Health Authority | |
|---|---|
| Bone marrow biopsy | |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Keywords | |
| Health, bone marrow | |
R (B) v Cambridge Health Authority [1995] EWCA Civ 43 is a UK judicial review and enterprise law case, concerning health care in the UK.
The parents of a child named Jaymee Bowen claimed that she should receive chemotherapy and a second bone marrow transplant for their 10 year old’s acute myeloid leukaemia. Consultants at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and Royal Marsden Hospital in London thought it would not succeed. Treatment in the United States would have been far too expensive. One doctor in Hammersmith would have treated her for £75,000. The doctors believed it would be ineffective and inappropriate.
Laws J held the doctors should have to "do more than toll the bell of tight resources. They must explain the priorities that have led them to decline to fund the treatment."
Sir Thomas Bingham MR held, the same day, the Health Authority had acted rationally and fairly and intervention would be misguided.
I have no doubt that in a perfect world any treatment which a patient, or a patient's family, sought would be provided if doctors were willing to give it, no matter how much it cost, particularly when a life was potentially at stake. It would however, in my view, be shutting one's eyes to the real world if the court were to proceed on the basis that we do live in such a world. It is common knowledge that health authorities of all kinds are constantly pressed to make ends meet. They cannot pay their nurses as much as they would like; they cannot provide all the treatments they would like; they cannot purchase all the extremely expensive medical equipment they would like; they cannot carry out all the research they would like; they cannot build all the hospitals and specialist units they would like. Difficult and agonising judgments have to be made as to how a limited budget is best allocated to the maximum advantage of the maximum number of patients. That is not a judgment which the court can make. In my judgment, it is not something that a health authority such as this Authority can be fairly criticised for not advancing before the court.
After the Court of Appeal judgment, The Sun said the child was "Condemned by Bank Balance" and the Daily Mail said the child was "Sentenced to Death". An anonymous private donor paid for treatment. The consultant who had agreed changed tack, did not provide a second bone marrow transplant, and did an experimental treatment called donor lymphocyte infusion. Jaymee died after a few months.
The funeral of Jaymee Bowen was held on 28 May 1996. That evening Channel 4 cancelled its scheduled late-night programmes to enable the TV discussion After Dark to debate the issues of the case, with among others Julian Tudor Hart, Martin Israel and the NHS Director of Public Health who had turned down Jaymee's family when they asked for further treatment. [1] [ full citation needed ]
Organ donation is the process when a person authorizes an organ of their own to be removed and transplanted to another person, legally, either by consent while the donor is alive, through a legal authorization for deceased donation made prior to death, or for deceased donations through the authorization by the legal next of kin.
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Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) is a rare form of chronic leukemia that affects children, commonly those aged four and younger. The name JMML now encompasses all diagnoses formerly referred to as juvenile chronic myeloid leukemia (JCML), chronic myelomonocytic leukemia of infancy, and infantile monosomy 7 syndrome. The average age of patients at diagnosis is two (2) years old. The World Health Organization has included JMML as a subcategory of myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative disorders.
The National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984 is an Act of the United States Congress that created the framework for the organ transplant system in the country. The act provided clarity on the property rights of human organs obtained from deceased individuals and established a public-private partnership known as Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). The OPTN was given the authority to oversee the national distribution of organs.
John Raymond Hobbs was a professor who was at the forefront of the techniques of clinical immunology, protein biochemistry and bone marrow transplantation, specifically in child health.
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Childhood leukemia is leukemia that occurs in a child and is a type of childhood cancer. Childhood leukemia is the most common childhood cancer, accounting for 29% of cancers in children aged 0–14 in 2018. There are multiple forms of leukemia that occur in children, the most common being acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) followed by acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Survival rates vary depending on the type of leukemia, but may be as high as 90% in ALL.
Georges Mathé was a French oncologist and immunologist. In November 1958, he performed the first successful allogeneic bone marrow transplant ever performed on unrelated human beings.
Mandi Jocelyn Schwartz was a Canadian ice hockey player with the Yale Bulldogs. She was a three time Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Hockey All-Academic, and played 73 consecutive games with the team before being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in December 2008. Prior to joining Yale University, Schwartz had played minor hockey for Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Saskatchewan. Her younger brother, Jaden currently plays for the Seattle Kraken in the National Hockey League.
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Shimon Slavin is an Israeli professor of medicine. He pioneered immunotherapy mediated by allogeneic donor lymphocytes and innovative methods for stem cell transplantation to cure hematological malignancies and solid tumors. He also used hematopoietic stem cells to induce transplantation tolerance to bone marrow and organ allografts.
Shifa International Hospitals Limited (SIH) is a Pakistani healthcare company that operates a group of hospitals. It is headquartered in Islamabad.