Judge set to whether baby's life-support treatment should end

A High Court judge is next month due to decide whether doctors should stop providing life-support treatment to a baby boy being cared for at a London hospital.

Specialists at King's College Hospital say giving further intensive care treatment to Isaiah Haastrup, who is now nine months old, is "futile, burdensome and not in his best interests".

Isaiah's mother, Takesha Thomas, and father Lanre Haastrup, want treatment to continue.

Mr Justice MacDonald has analysed preliminary issues at hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London.

He is expected to make decisions after a hearing in mid-January.

Barrister Fiona Paterson, who has represented King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust at hearings, has told Mr Justice MacDonald that Isaiah was born at King's College Hospital on February 18 with a severe brain injury thought to have been caused by a deprivation of oxygen.

She said he was "ventilator-dependent" and being cared for in a paediatric intensive care unit.

Doctors did not think there were any "further investigations or forms of treatment" which would benefit him.

She told the judge that relations between hospital bosses and Isaiah's parents were "difficult".