THE nightmare experience of a North-East family has highlighted the dilemma faced by doctors and families when it comes to deciding whether to withhold treatment.

When her 60-year-old mother suffered a stroke Fiona Robinson, from Darlington, was told she would die within 48 hours.

But ten days later, after her blind and paralysed mother began moving her limbs and reacting to those around her, the family asked why she was not being given any food.

"My dad was adamant she should be fed and they only restarted the food after a lot of persuasion," said Mrs Robinson, 35, whose family have been at their mother's bedside every day.

Almost 12 weeks after her stroke, the sick woman's family are now wondering whether the withholding of nutrition may have made her condition even worse.

The family say they have spoken to a minister at the Department of Health to express their concern at the situation.

"We have been in touch with a solicitor, it won't stop here," said Mrs Robinson.

Details of the North-East patient's fight for her life at the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, came to light on the day the High Court was being asked to rule whether doctors or patients had the ultimate right to decide to continue treatment.

Philip Havers, representing the General Medical Council (GMC), told three appeal judges, headed by Master of the Rolls Lord Phillips, that a judge's ruling last year could put doctors in "an impossibly difficult position".

Leslie Burke, 45 from Lancaster, has a degenerative brain condition and last July won the right to stop doctors withdrawing treatment, including nutrition or hydration, when his illness reaches its final stages.

In May last year, Mr Justice Munby, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled that if a patient is competent - or, if incompetent, has made an advance request for treatment - doctors have a duty to provide artificial nutrition or hydration.

Yesterday, Mr Havers told the judges: "In other words, the doctor must provide the treatment which the patient demands, notwithstanding that the doctor's clear professional view is that the treatment will provide the patient with no clinical benefit or will be futile."

He said this was not the law. A patient did not have a right to require the provision of any particular form of treatment.

Mr Havers said the judgement was not in the best interests of patients because, firstly, doctors would have to provide treatment that they knew would be of no benefit or could even be harmful.

Secondly, to require a doctor to do so was destructive of the relationship between doctor and patients.

Mr Burke sat in court in his wheelchair as Mr Havers outlined the GMC case for overturning Mr Justice Munby's ruling

Mr Burke took the GMC to court because he feared that his wish to go on living until he died naturally could be overridden under GMC guidelines.

Mrs Robinson, who first aired her concerns on a Radio Five Live phone-in yesterday, said she used to be sympathetic to the idea of helping terminally-ill patients die by withholding nutrition, but after going through a "roller-coaster" emotional experience in recent weeks she was now uncertain.

"They now say she is in a vegetative state and she could be like that for 20 years," said Mrs Robinson.

"It is very difficult to know what to do when your mother can still hold your hand or smile at you."

Consultant neurologist Dr Peter Newman, a specialist at the James Cook University Hospital, said: "We treat all strokes actively from the outset with appropriate therapy and nutritional support.

"If it then appears hopeless we would consider, in discussion with the family, nursing and medical staff, whether it is appropriate to continue active treatment, taking into account the patient's own wishes, if possible, before they became unwell.

"It's a very carefully made decision which is kept under constant review.

"All the nurses, doctors and hospital staff involved with patients like this are acutely aware of what a very difficult time it is for the family."