Doctors are keeping us in dark, say Charlie’s parents
Hospital chiefs have been holding meetings all week – without inviting seriously ill baby’s mum and dad
‘Their views don’t matter’
CHARLIE Gard’s doctors are keeping his family ‘in the dark’ about his fate, his furious parents alleged last night.
Connie Yates, 31, and Chris Gard, 32, said Great Ormond Street Hospital chiefs had been holding meetings all week – but not inviting them.
The couple are spending every precious moment with their son as the hospital prepares to remove his life support.
Despite an extraordinary global campaign to save 11-month-old Charlie – supported by Donald Trump and the Pope – there was little sign of hope yesterday.
Downing Street has signalled there is nothing to be done, even though President Trump is expected to raise the issue when he meets Prime Minister Theresa May at the G20 summit today.
There has been a worldwide surge of support for the baby boy, whose genetic condition is so rare he is only the 16th known sufferer.
Last night Miss Yates said: ‘Doctors have kept us in the dark. We can only hope that various meetings they’ve been having, to which we have not been invited, are positive and that they will let us take Charlie to the US for treatment.’
A spokesman for the family added: ‘While meetings have been carrying on all week around them, doctors at the hospital have not thought to include them.
‘On rare occasions when Connie and Chris are invited in to meetings, they feel ambushed.
‘They are called at very short notice, leaving no time for them to get a lawyer to accompany them. The way they are continually treated, as if their views as parents don’t matter, is heaping stress on them at a time when naturally they are already very distressed.’
The family have released photos of Charlie’s first haircut, done earlier this week. Miss Yates said: ‘Charlie’s beautiful hair was getting decidedly long. I always think it is a very poignant moment for any mum when her baby is old enough to have a first haircut.’
Charlie’s rare form of mitochondrial depletion syndrome has no accepted cure, and his British doctors do not believe an experimental therapy being offered in the US has any chance of success. Courts all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights have backed their stance.
And yesterday medical ethics experts said Charlie’s parents should face the ‘reality’ that science cannot save him.
Jonathan Montgomery, a professor of health care law at University College London, said: ‘This is not a case where Charlie’s parents have not been listened to.
‘It is a case where their hopes for improvement are not justified by the evidence.
‘The case is tragic, but we owe it to Charlie to take decisions based on evidence.’
And Dr Giles Birchley, senior research associate in surgical innovation and bioethics at th the University of Bristol, said: ‘Putting any terminally ill child through an experimental treatment which cannot make them better will not help either that child or their parents. It will only prolong that child’s hurt and suffering.’
At some point, doctors are expected to give Charlie a dose of painkillers and then remove his artificial ventilator. If they cannot take him to America, Charlie’s bereft parents have begged to be allowed to take him home in Bedfont, south-west London, to die, but so far the hospital has refused their ‘final wish’.
Great Ormond Street has not issued any statements all week.