Vincent Lambert became a quadriplegic and was left in a comatose state after a motorcycle accident in 2008.

In 2013, Lambert's wife and six of his eight siblings asked courts to rule that his hydration and nutrition be disconnected.

In response, his parents, who are Catholics, initiated a legal fight to protect their son's life.

The case went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, which approved the removal of hydration and nutrition.

French end of life law allows the suspension of treatment in futile cases.

The Catholic Church in France has protested that Lambert is not undergoing any treatment, but is simply receiving food and water via a feeding tube.

He is not in a vegetative state as such, given that his body reacts to certain stimuli and is able to feel pain.

The hospital in Reims said it did not intend to switch off the machine sustaining the patient.

"This procedure cannot go ahead given the current lack of calm and certainty," doctors explained.

They referred the issue to the health ministry last Thursday.

Doctors had reportedly feared that there could be plot by pro-life activists to abduct Lambert from the hospital and kidnap members of his medical team.

Lambert's nephew said the doctors' decision to continue hydration and nutrition was due to intimidation.

Public prosecutors have been asked to look at the case.

The row over Vincent Lambert is similar to a legal fight over Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who suffered brain damage in 1990 and was left in a vegetative state.

Eventually her husband won a protracted court case to have her feeding tube removed and she died in 2005.

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• Catholic News Agency
• The Telegraph
• Image: Paris Match

The inquiry will focus on the Liverpool Care Pathway, designed to ease the suffering of patients in their last hours or days of life.

The pathway often involves sedation and the withdrawal of life-prolonging drugs, nutrition and hydration.

Critics say people are being put on it without their relatives being informed, and that the pathway is being used to hasten the deaths of patients who are not imminently dying.

When Norman Lamb, Britain's Care and Support Minister, announced the review, he said consider whether payments to hospitals for meeting targets on their use of the pathway might have led to "bad decisions or practice".

The Daily Telegraph has revealed that six out of 10 National Health Service hospital trusts had received payments totalling $NZ23 million or more for attaining these goals. In some hospitals more than half of all dying patients were put on the pathway

Department of Health officials have insisted that the payments are to ensure that patients are "treated with dignity" as they die — and many doctors argue that the widespread adoption of the Liverpool Care Pathway has led to improved care for the dying.

"It is clear that everyone wants their loved ones' final hours of life to be as pain-free and dignified as possible, and the Liverpool Care Pathway is an important part of achieving this aim," Mr Lamb said.

"However as we have seen, there have been too many cases where patients were put on the pathway without a proper explanation or their families being involved. This is simply unacceptable."

The Catholic Communications Network said Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark, chairman of the English and Welsh bishops' Department for Christian Responsibility and Citizenship, welcomed the review.

It said Archbishop Smith had passed on "specific concerns raised with him by some clinicians" and had called for such an inquiry in a letter to the government in September.

Sources:

Catholic News Service

The Telegraph

Image: The Spectator