A MUSLIM family have won their battle to have a seriously brain-damaged woman cared for at home so that she can receive the spiritual benefits of her religion.

Judge Thomas Hegarty, QC, said that it was reasonable for Syeda Ahsan, a mother of five children, to be at home even though her persistent vegetative state means that she will be unaware of the benefits of practices such as daily prayer.

Mrs Ahsan, 48, has been unconscious since she suffered two heart attacks at Leicester General Hospital after a hysterectomy in 2001. After the operation she continued bleeding and her blood pressure fell.

She is expected to live for another six years. The hospital admitted liability but believed that she should be cared for at Rushcliffe nursing home, Loughborough, at a cost of £178,919 a year. Her husband, Manazir Ahsan, believed that his wife should be at home because of the spiritual benefits to be gained from prayer.

No criticism was made of the care at Rushcliffe, but he believed it best that Mrs Ahsan should be with her family at their home in West Knighton, Leicester. Her 24-hour home care will cost £300,660 a year.

The judge said the fact that a cheaper regime was available was irrelevant. The issue was whether the cost of the care advocated by the family was reasonable in the circumstances. Mrs Ahsan’s counsel, Elizabeth Anne Gumbel, QC, said: “It is of concern to the family that what she would have wanted, the life she made for herself, her prayer regime, the importance of the Koran to her, her reciting the Koran as a matter of course, should remain a part of her life for as long as she is alive.”

She said that the Ahsans belonged to a close family who played an active part in the Muslim community. Dr Ahsan was a prominent member of the Muslim Council of Britain and his wife had taught the Koran to local people.

The judge ruled that the cost of her care should be assessed on the basis that it would be reasonable for her to be cared for at home and that the family were entitled to interim payments, pending that assessment, so that Mrs Ahsan could embark on a return that would be staged to ensure its feasibility. Mrs Ahsan is also to receive £330,000 in general and special damages.

The judge had heard expert evidence of the spiritual benefits of prayer to someone who was in her condition. As the spiritual realm was one in which the forensic process of the law could not venture, he had to proceed on the basis that it had not been demonstrated that prayer in itself could confer any spiritual or physical benefit upon Mrs Ahsan, or that she could gain any comfort from her family praying around her.

He referred to the family’s concerns about the proprieties being observed at the care home regarding religious matters and her personal needs.

Rejecting University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust’s position that none of this was of any relevance to the issues in the case, he said that he did not think that a reasonable member of the public would think that the religious beliefs of a person should be disregarded if they were in a state of severe mental incapacity.

On the contrary, he would expect most of them to expect such people to be cared for, as far as practical, so as to have due regard for their personal dignity and religious beliefs.The family said that they were delighted with the outcome.

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