LONDON: A 13-year-old terminally ill girl has won the right to die after persuading a hospital to withdraw its bid to force her to have a risky heart transplant operation.

Hannah Jones, from Hereford, took the agonising decision to turn down a life-saving transplant, and told doctors she would rather go home to die surrounded by her family than spend any more time in hospital, The Mirror said.

The girl turned down the operation because it might not work, and even if it did, it would be followed by constant medication. She said she would rather die with dignity, the BBC reported.

'I've had enough of hospitals and wanted to come home,' said the youngster, who has been in and out of wards for much of the previous eight years after she was struck down by leukaemia at the age of five.

The ensuing chemotherapy left her with a hole in the heart and, as her body grew, it has been unable to keep pace.

Currently, her heart can pump only 10 per cent of its capacity.

Last year, Hannah became critically ill and had three operations to fit a multi-pacer to make her heart beat more strongly. She also suffered a collapsed lung during the seven months in hospital.

Doctors gave her six months to live and warned that the only potential long-term solution was a heart transplant.

They warned her that even if it was successful, the drugs used to prevent her body from rejecting the new heart could prompt a recurrence of leukaemia.

'They explained everything to me but I just didn't want to go through any more operations,' she said. She made her decision to go home after talking to doctors at Birmingham Children's Hospital, which fitted her multi-pacer.

Her family believes it was a locum doctor at their local hospital in Hereford who reported the case to the child protection unit after Hannah had been taken home by her parents.

The first the family knew about the legal action was when they received a phone call telling them that the hospital was applying for an order to remove Hannah from the family home, on the grounds that her parents were 'preventing her treatment', the Times of London reported.

Her father, Mr Andrew Jones, 43, said: 'It is outrageous that the people from the hospital could presume we didn't have our daughter's best interests at heart.'

The schoolgirl was on the brink of being forcibly removed from her home when she begged a child protection officer to spare her the heart operation.

'Hannah managed to convince this officer that this was a decision she had made on her own and she had thought about it over a long period of time,' he said.

After consulting lawyers, the hospital said on Monday that no further action would be taken.

In a letter, Herefordshire Primary Care Trust chief executive Chris Bull told the Joneses: 'Hannah appears to understand the serious nature of her condition. She demonstrated awareness that she could die.'

Her parents complained to the General Medical Council about the hospital, but Mr Bull told them that the locum's actions were 'appropriate'.

Despite her condition, Hannah manages to go to school three times a week. But she gets tired after just an hour and has to use a wheelchair.

'Hannah knows she can change her mind at any time and go on the waiting list for a transplant,' Mr Jones said.

Now, Hannah's family is facing new heartache after a charity's offer to take them on a holiday to Disney World in Florida could be scuppered because insurers will not provide cover if she falls ill during the trip.