The tragic case of Rom Houben, the 46-year-old Belgian man who was mistakenly and wrongly assumed to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) for 23 years, raises a number of profound legal medical and ethical issues, including the accuracy of diagnosing the condition, the desirability of keeping patients alive in this “twilight” existence, and the implications of continuing to treat such patients.
The tragic case of Rom Houben, the 46-year-old Belgian man who was mistakenly and wrongly assumed to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) for 23 years, raises a number of profound legal medical and ethical issues, including the accuracy of diagnosing the condition, the desirability of keeping patients alive in this “twilight” existence, and the implications of continuing to treat such patients.
Houben was 20 when he was involved in a car crash, in which he was seriously injured. He was diagnosed and assumed to be in a vegetative state for 23 years and treated as such. His mother tended to him in hospital and was the only one who believed he remained sentient, despite his apparently unresponsive
