Charlie’s fight for life: Now Trump plans to grill PM face-to-face
‘The heartbreaking situation’
THERESA May is braced for a grilling by US President Donald Trump over efforts to save the life of desperately ill baby Charlie Gard.
The White House has requested a oneon-one meeting with the Prime Minister tomorrow at the G20 gathering of world leaders in Hamburg.
President Trump has declared America’s staunch support for saving the 11-monthold boy, who suffers from an incredibly rare genetic disease and is due to have his lifesupport turned off.
Charlie’s family raised £1.3million from the public to pay for last- ditch experimental treatment in the US, but have been blocked from taking him after losing legal battles against doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital who insist there is no hope and that he should be allowed to die.
The agenda for the hour-long meeting between Mr Trump and Mrs May has not been released, but Downing Street is preparing for the Charlie case to come up.
Yesterday it emerged the White House has been phoning the boy’s family, who say that Mr Trump has ‘a very good understanding of the whole case,’ and also the office of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
And the international tug- of-love over Charlie intensified as Italy also urged Britain to help save him. Italian foreign minister Angelino Alfano personally lobbied his British counterpart Boris Johnson in a phone call, which follows interventions by Pope Francis, who tweeted of the ‘duty to defend human life’, and the Vatican, which has offered the papal hospital in Rome to treat Charlie.
Mrs May’s meeting with Mr Trump tomorrow is likely to be dominated by the North Korea missile crisis and the prospects for a post-Brexit trade deal. But No 10 is preparing a detailed briefing for the PM on Charlie’s case in anticipation of likely questions from the president.
Until now, ministers have not been involved in briefing the White House on the little boy, leaving the task to his family, the hospital and Department of Health lawyers.
Last night a White House source said: ‘The president is deeply moved by the heartbreaking situation facing Charlie Gard and his parents. Although the president himself has not spoken to the family, members of the administration, assisted by British officials, have done so.
‘President Trump has no desire to pressure the family in any way. However, he does want them to know that he is willing to provide assistance should they need any.
‘As a father and grandfather, President Trump understands the limitless love one has for a child and he wishes to be helpful to Charlie Gard and his family, as does Pope Francis and millions of families worldwide.’
Officials insist that Mrs May cannot intervene in the case unless new evidence is produced to persuade Charlie’s doctors and the courts that treatment abroad offers a realistic prospect of improvement in his condition.
But the baby boy’s parents, Connie Yates, 31, and Chris Gard, 32, have steadfastly refused to give up.
Miss Yates said: ‘ The support from the Pope and the president has given us hope. They are traditional men who believe in the family. They believe in our case and understand why we believe it is right to continue fighting so hard to save Charlie.’
But despite Mr Trump’s tweet on Monday that America would be ‘ delighted’ to help Charlie, his future appeared bleak yesterday. Mrs May told the Commons the matter was in the hands of Great Ormond Street Hospital, where Charlie is in intensive care.
And the hospital, which won legal battles all the way to the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights to be allowed to remove his life-support, claimed its hands were tied by their rulings. They have all declared that Charlie is brain-damaged, suffering pain and has no hope of recovery, and that it is in his ‘best interests’ to die.
Senior legal sources said the various court rulings mean doctors are obliged to withdraw Charlie’s artificial ventilator and pre-
vent him from going to America. They said even if the hospital changed its stance, it would take another court case to reverse the rulings which effectively demand that Charlie must die.
It is still possible that doctors will at least agree to allow Charlie to go home to die – which his parents said was their ‘final wish’ if all else failed.
Charlie’s type of mitochondrial depletion syndrome is so rare he is only the 16th sufferer worldwide. The disease drains energy from his organs and muscles, and he can only breathe with the help of a mechanical ventilator.
It is unclear why the hospital has not yet removed Charlie’s ventilator, a week after being given the green light to do so when the parents exhausted all their legal options. Miss Yates and Mr Gard, of south-west London, who say their son is not brain damaged and is showing signs of improvement, are mounting a round-the- clock vigil at his hospital bedside, after begging doctors for more time to say their goodbyes.
Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain yesterday, genetics expert Lord Winston said: ‘The loss of a child is about the worst injury any person can have.
‘But these interferences from the Vatican and Donald Trump seem to be extremely unhelpful and very cruel, because this child has been dealt with at a hospital which has huge expertise in mitochondrial disease.’