Hospital staff have been told they can force-feed an anorexic woman by a High Court judge in a legal first.
‘Patricia’, 25, whose real name can’t be used for legal reasons, developed the eating disorder when she was 11 and her weight has plummeted as low as three stone – the same as a five-year-old child.
It has left her so weak she has been unable to walk unaided for the past two years. She has also developed osteoporosis and bedsores.
Patricia has received treatment at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital but regularly refused to eat or accept other interventions to gain weight.
The hospital, based in Norwich, rejected requests from her family to feed her via a nasograstric tube under restraint without her consent.
