14 July to 21 July

Spirituality and the dying child: whose needs are paramount?

A ten-year-old child is dying. He has undergone treatment for cancer for the past year, maintaining spasmodic school attendance, but his condition is now deteriorating and treatment is purely palliative. Diagnosis, and now a terminal prognosis, have, perhaps understandably, decimated his Catholic parents' faith in a kindly God, alienating them from the church. Regardless of the extent to which the child has been involved with the church in the past, his parents will have nothing to do with their parish priest, who they will not allow to enter their home. This is how it stays until the child's death - at home, with nursing support provided by a children's hospice home care team.

Stories of this kind, in which children are denied spiritual care, because their parents have abandoned trust in God, whose omnipotence has not stretched to a miraculous cure for their child, are not uncommon. They invite reflection on what is best for dying children, particularly in relation to their spiritual needs. Whose wishes should be paramount in such situations? How can professionals who are committed to caring not just for dying children, but for whole families, act ethically in the face of death and the loss of faith?

Shirley Potts is Head of Disability Studies at Liverpool Hope University; Gavin Fairbairn, Running Stream Professor of Ethics and Language, School of Applied Global Ethics. Their paper, 'Spiritual needs in paediatric palliative care: communicating ethically with dying children' was published in Ethical Space, 3 (4) 49-56, in 2007.