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LONDON, England, January 24, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A Warsaw court has declared the repatriation of a Polish citizen being starved and dehydrated in an English hospital lawful.
Now RS’s family, government, and Poland herself are waiting for the British authorities to release him into their care.
The Polish patient, who sustained serious brain-damage in early November after suffering a heart attack, was granted diplomatic status by the Polish Government on Friday, in the belief that this would remove him from the jurisdiction of the British courts. On December 15, the UK Court of Protection granted permission to an NHS hospital and wife to decide between them when to stop RS’s life-sustaining treatment. A Warsaw court subsequently gave Poland permission to bring her citizen home.
“All we need is that consent of Great Britain,” Poland’s deputy Justice Minister, Marcin Warchoł, told his nation’s media.
“I trust that such consent will be given quickly.”
Warchoł described the negotiations between Poland and Britain for the survival of the Polish citizen as a “game for the life of our compatriot.”
“I believe that we will win; I believe that the civilization of life will conquer the civilization of death,” he said.
“We cannot abandon any of our countrymen. Protection for life from conception until natural death belongs to our culture, faith and traditions.”
But Britain’s consent has not been “given quickly.” Yesterday one of RS’s two sisters tweeted a plea to Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, asking him to take part in the negotiations.
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
“Mr Prime Minister @MorawieckiM:Please urgently get involved in the matter of my brother,” she wrote.
“We believe that [the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs] is doing everything possible to help him.”
An interview with RS’s other sister, who lives in England, was published by Poland’s national broadcaster, TVP, yesterday evening. A British court order forbids the publication of the name and any other details that might identify RS, his wife, his family, his doctors or his hospital. The Polish media has ignored this, publishing the Christian names of RS and his sisters, and broadcasting videos of RS in his hospital bed.
“I am very grateful to the [Polish] Minister of Justice, to Minster Marcin Warchoł, for his initiative and actions,” RS’s sister said.
“We are waiting for whatever happens next to happen as soon as possible because my brother is still without water and nutrition,” she continued.
“Minister Warchoł has asked Britain’s Health Secretary about [re]connecting [the feeding tube]. We have doubts that this will work because the British side does not want to act on the question of this [re]connection. We are simply waiting,” she said.
RS has not received nutrition or more hydration than is strictly necessary to deliver “palliative care”, analgesics and sedation, since January 14. His doctors testified in December that, although RS could live for five or more years with clinically assisted nutrition and hydration [CANH], he had only a small chance of moving into even a minimally conscious state. For this reason, they applied to the UK’s Court of Protection for permission to stop “medical treatment,” as CANH is considered in Britain, and begin “palliative care.” In this the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust was supported by RS’s legal wife, a divorcee whose civil marriage to RS was used by the courts as evidence that RS, a church-going Catholic, might dissent from Church doctrines regarding life-sustaining treatment.
However, RS’s family, including his mother, sisters and niece, strongly disagreed and underscored that RS was a devout Catholic and pro-life, opposed to abortion (“even for an unborn child likely to be medically compromised,” as Mr Justice Cohen noted in his judgement), euthanasia and even the court-ordered removal of life-support to the infant Alfie Evans.
The judge, convinced that dying was in RS’s “best interests,” decided in favor of RS’s wife and the hospital, believing that the woman knew her husband’s wishes better than his birth family did. As a result of his December 15 decision, nutrition and hydration were withdrawn from RS for the first of three times. With the help of Britain’s Christian Legal Centre and Poland’s Ordo luris Institute for Legal Culture, his birth family has fought the judgement in the British courts and made applications to the European Court of Human Rights, all of which have failed. At the family’s behest, and during growing interest and concern amongst the Polish population, Polish consular officials, and then the Polish Government itself, have become increasingly involved in the case.
Mr Justice Cohen’s belief that dying was in a disabled Polish Catholic’s “best interests” has, therefore, sparked a diplomatic incident.
For more LifeSiteNews coverage of the RS case, please click here.
The Christian Legal Centre has spent over £70,000 in fighting for RS’s life. To support the battle, please donate to LifeSiteNews’ fundraising campaign on their behalf here.