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LONDON, England, January 22, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The Polish government has issued a diplomatic passport to a Polish patient dying from the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration in an English hospital.
According to multiple Polish media sources, including the mainstream national newspaper Rzeczpospolita, the Polish government has issued the passport in an attempt to remove the Polish patient from the power of the British courts. Conservative news website wPolityce has reported that the passport is already on its way to London.
On December 15, a Court of Protection gave the U.K. National Health Service Trust caring for “RS” the permission to cease his clinically assisted nutrition and hydration (CANH). Justice Cohen ruled that to remove the treatment from the brain-damaged man was at the discretion of the NHS and RS’s wife. Although RS was a devout, pro-life Catholic who was opposed to euthanasia and objected to the court-ordered death of infant Alfie Evans, RS’s wife supported the NHS’s desire to end her husband’s life.
However, Justice Cohen’s decision was vehemently opposed by RS’s birth family, including his mother, two sisters, and niece.
With the support of Britain’s Christian Legal Centre, they have stopped the court-permitted dehydration and starvation of RS at least twice.
With the support of the Polish Government and Poland’s Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, they have three times petitioned the European Court of Human Rights for RS’s right to life.
The Polish Government has also asked Justice Cohen to allow it to bring their citizen back to Poland for treatment. Justice Cohen rejected this request, in part because of the danger RS might die en route. Justice Cohen has consistently voiced his opinion, shared by RS’s hospital doctors, that continued CANH is not in RS’s “best interests.”
The case has become a major scandal in Poland, public anger snowballing since the news spread to the Eastern European country in late December. Jacek Kotula, a Polish regional councillor and leading pro-life activist, told LifeSiteNews that “all Poland” is talking about it.
“Thank you for the support,” he said, referring to LifeSiteNews’ ongoing coverage of the case, “because it is a battle with the Civilization of Death.”
“For us Poles, euthanasia is Hitlerism [Nazism] … How can a normal person say that is in the best interests of a dying Pole that he should die? In Poland we fight until the end for life, which is the greatest gift of the Creator!”
PETITION UPDATE (1/26/21) -
With regret, we report that Mr. R.S. has passed away (+RIP). May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Thank you for keeping him and his loved ones in your prayers.
Please read this LifeSite article on R.S.'s passing: 'BREAKING: Pro-life Polish Catholic dies from dehydration, starvation in English hospital' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-pro-life-polish-catholic-dies-from-dehydration-starvation-in-english-hospital
We hereby suspend this petition.
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PETITION UPDATE (1/22/21) -
The Polish government has issued a diplomatic passport to a Polish patient dying from the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration in an English hospital.
According to multiple Polish media sources, including the mainstream national newspaper Rzeczpospolita, the Polish government has issued the passport in an attempt to remove the Polish patient from the power of the British courts. Conservative news website wPolityce has reported that the passport is already on its way to London.
The case has become a major scandal in Poland, public anger snowballing since the news spread to the Eastern European country in late December. Jacek Kotula, a Polish regional councillor and leading pro-life activist, told LifeSiteNews that “all Poland” is talking about it.
“Thank you for the support,” he said, referring to LifeSiteNews’ ongoing coverage of the case, “because it is a battle with the Civilization of Death.”
“For us Poles, euthanasia is Hitlerism [Nazism] … How can a normal person say that is in the best interests of a dying Pole that he should die? In Poland we fight until the end for life, which is the greatest gift of the Creator!”
Please continue to SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition. And, please continue to pray for a miracle. Thank you!
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PETITION UPDATE (1/19/21) -
Another legal intervention on behalf of R.S. to save his life by having nutrition and hydration restored to him has been refused by the presiding judge in the U.K.
Judge Cohen refused to allow the Polish Consul General to visit R.S., a Polish national who suffered a brain injury while residing in Britain.
This is the latest set-back for R.S.'s birth family, who have been trying every legal avenue to have R.S.'s nourishment reinstated, so that he could be transported from the U.K. to his native Poland, where he could be cared for.
Please pray that this situation would somehow be resolved, and life-enabling treatment restored.
'BREAKING: UK court forbids Polish Consul General from visiting Pole dying in English hospital' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-uk-court-forbids-polish-consul-general-from-visiting-pole-dying-in-english-hospital
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A Polish Catholic man who suffered a brain injury, R.S. (his identity has been protected), is being deliberately starved and dehydrated to death in a British hospital, even though he has shown signs of improvement.
Please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition to help save this man's life by demanding that the British government and the treating hospital re-authorize nutrition and hydration with immediate effect.
This shocking situation has been going on since December, as R.S.'s wife and doctors have argued that R.S.'s vital life-support should be cut-off while his birth family has argued that his life-support should be maintained so that he can be transported back to Poland where he would be cared for.
R.S.'s mother stated: "I am devastated that the British authorities have decided to dehydrate my son to death. I want to take my son back to his own country, where I would be allowed to care for him," she said. "What the British authorities are trying to do to my son is euthanasia by a back door."
And, at Christmas, video of R.S. was taken showing his condition to have improved since he sustained his brain injury.
In the same video, R.S. is seen in what some have described as a 'minimally-conscious state,' but that evidence, and the accompanying testimony of two neurologists, was rejected out-of-hand by a British judge.
The birth family of R.S. then took the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which also summarily rejected the case for a technicality based on standing. The presiding judge, Judge Grozev, said that R.S.'s niece was not a close enough relation to him for the case to be heard.
How appalling a reason to deprive a man of food and water!
But, right now, R.S.'s lawyers from the Christian Legal Centre (CLC) are now pursuing a last-ditch effort to have the ECHR judge recused from the case because, as Dr. Roger Kiska of the CLC told LifeSite, "Mr. Grozev was a long-time member of the George Soros funded Open Society Foundation which advocates for the type of euthanasia being utilised in the R.S. case," before he became an ECHR judge.
All the while, the Polish Government has been doing everything in its power, including offering to airlift R.S. back to Poland, to help the situation.
So, in other words, there are people ready and willing to help take care of R.S. if and when released by the hospital for transit out of Britain.
Please SIGN this urgent petition to the British Government demanding that they stop the process of euthanizing R.S., and allow him to return to his home country where he may be able to recover from his current state.
After signing, please take a few minutes to politely contact the following:
British Embassy in Washington, D.C.
+1 (202) 588-6500
3100 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20008
USA
British High Commission
+1 (613) 237-1530
80 Elgin Street Ottawa Ontario K1P 5K7
Canada
Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
020 7219 7069
[email protected]
LATEST INFORMATION:
BREAKING: UK court forbids Polish Consul General from visiting Pole dying in English hospital - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-uk-court-forbids-polish-consul-general-from-visiting-pole-dying-in-english-hospital
'Hope dims for pro-life Polish Catholic now dying of hunger, thirst in English hospital' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/hope-dims-for-pro-life-polish-catholic-now-dying-of-hunger-thirst-in-english-hospital
'UK Courts Accused of 'Euthanasia by a Back Door' After Ordering Withdrawal of Vital Treatment for Foreign Citizen' - https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2021/january/uk-courts-accused-of-euthanasia-by-a-back-door-after-ordering-withdrawal-of-vital-treatment-for-foreign-citizen
**Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
However, the British courts do not agree, defining CANH as “medical treatment” that can be removed if doing so is considered in a patient’s “best interests.” Thus, although passive euthanasia is de facto permitted in Britain, de jure it is not.
RS was first hospitalized on November 6 after suffering a heart attack at home. Doctors testified that he suffered brain damage and predicted that he will never progress beyond a minimally conscious state. However, at least two specialists consulted by RS’s birth family believe that he might improve, and Poland’s “Budzik” (“alarm clock”) clinic, which specializes in disorders of consciousness, is ready to receive him.
RS’s hospital doctors estimate that, with continued CANH, the patient might live five or more years. However, as he has been without nutrition or more hydration than is needed for palliative care since last Thursday, time may be running out for him.
Developing …
To read LifeSiteNews’ detailed and up-to-date coverage of the RS case, please click on this link.
Readers may also donate and help the legal battle to keep RS alive at LifeSiteNews’ LifeFunder.