Minister for Health v AS (2004) 33 Fam LR 223
AS was a 15-year-old boy who suffered from life-threatening atypical Burkitt’s lymphoma. The boy needed chemotherapy or he would die. However, the chemotherapy had potentially fatal side-effects which would likely require treatment with blood transfusions. AS refused consent to the transfusions due to his Jehovah’s Witness beliefs. His parents, also Jehovah’s Witnesses, left the decision to be made by AS. Chemotherapy, to which AS consented, was commenced, and the hospital sought a declaration overriding AS's refusal of the blood transfusions.
The Court decided that AS was Gillick-competent, but still granted the application. The Court remarked that the welfare of the child is paramount, that ‘welfare’ included the child’s physical well-being, and if that child will die without life-saving treatment which has good prospects of a long-term cure it is unquestionably in the child’s best interests to receive that treatment. It also found that parents’ wishes, through relevant, are not determinative. Further, if the child is Gillick-competent and refuses the treatment, this is relevant and important but does not prevent the court from authorising medical treatment where the best interests of the child require it.