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dpaLondonThe family of 12-year-old Archie Battersbee have filed a last-minute bid with the High Court in London to have him moved to die in a hospice “with dignity” rather than in a hospital.Doctors treating the schoolboy for the last four months declared Archie to be “brain-stem dead,” prompting a lengthy but ultimately failed legal battle by his family to continue his life support treatment in the hope the unconscious boy would recover.The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) refused an application from the boy’s parents on Wednesday to delay any changes to his treatment, which is due to be withdrawn from 11 am (1000 GMT) on Thursday.The family confirmed they have now lodged a final application to the High Court in London to transfer Archie from the Royal London Hospital to a hospice.Hollie Dance, the boy’s mother, said she wanted her son to “spend his last moments” together with family privately.Speaking to Times Radio hours before her son’s life support is due to be turned off, Dance said that Archie’s loved ones have not been able to have privacy at the hospital, saying: “We can’t even have the chance to be in a room together as a family without nurses.” She added: “There’s absolutely no privacy, which is why, again, the courts keep going on about this dignified death - why aren’t we allowed to take our child to a hospice and spend his last moments, his last days together privately? “Why is the hospital obstructing it?” She said: “It’s going be awful today.“I woke up absolutely sick to my stomach. Like I just feel this hospital have so much to answer for and I don’t really know what else to say today.” The child has been in a coma since he was found unconscious at his home in Southend, Essex, on April 7 and is being kept alive by a combination of medical interventions, including ventilation and drug treatments.
