August 21, 2012

JOANNE Dunn will today make the most heartbreaking decision a mother can face.

She will meet with doctors to ask them to stop feeding her son, Mark Leigep, to let  him die.

Mr Leigep, 37, has been in a vegetative state since March 2006 after suffering head injuries in a car crash at Elizabeth in Adelaide's north.

Ms Dunn, of Venus Bay, on the Eyre Peninsula, expects that once that meeting is over  this afternoon, doctors will immediately stop the "futile feeding" which has kept her son alive.

What happens next, she does not know. But she plans to stay by his bedside.

"I don't want to see him dying, but I don't want him  to die alone. I want to be there," Ms Dunn said.

"I'm frightened that if I go out for a cigarette he might die on his own."

She has been told it would take about two weeks for his body to shut down.

It could take longer.

She wants her son's story documented to prompt action on euthanasia so other families will not have to go through similar distress.

"Mark has been dead for six years and we shouldn't even be going through this," Ms Dunn said.

She would rather he died swiftly and peacefully by euthanasia with drugs, with his family by his bedside.

But starving her son to death is her only legal option.

"The most distressing thing for the family is thinking that he is starving to death," Ms Dunn said.

"It's scary to think it might take four or five weeks."

She said she should have the right to let her son die, humanely, using drugs.

"I should have the right to put him to sleep as the whole family are there."

Mr Leigep's family had previously disagreed about halting feeding, and the Public Advocate assumed responsibility for his treatment.

Late last month, after years of lobbying by Ms Dunn, that responsibility was returned to her, leading to her decision today. Her other son, Brian Leigep, will support his mother through the process.

"It's not like we haven't tried everything possible to get him back," he said.

"After six years, there's nothing anyone can do. It's just not going to happen."

Brian Leigep is called every time his brother's condition worsens, something that occurs every few months.

"It's distressing to get a phone call saying: 'He's having breathing difficulties so we've sent him to the Royal Adelaide Hospital'," he said.

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