CHARLIE’S DAY OF DESTINY
++ Parents deliver 350,000-name petition ++ Controversial US pastor flies in to join fight ++ Final plea to judge at 2pm
HIS heartrending fight for life has gripped the world and even prompted dramatic interventions from the White House and the Vatican. Now, following weeks of emotional highs and lows, Charlie Gard’s fate will finally be decided after a hearing in the High Court in London at 2pm today.
In a moving press conference yesterday his parents made a last plea for their baby to be given experimental treatment.
Connie Yates and Chris Gard were boosted by a 350,000-signature petition asking Great Ormond Street to stop insisting it would be kinder for Charlie to be allowed to die.
In another twist, the couple were joined by a controversial pastor who flew in from Washington to pray for them. Rev Patrick Mahoney declared God has already played a part by making Donald Trump and Pope Francis speak out for the sick 11-month-old.
Charlie’s parents will today beg the court to be able to seek treatment for his rare genetic condition, which has left him on life support. Great Ormond Street requested the hearing after seven top doctors suggested the new therapy might work.
Mr Justice Francis, who previously ruled ‘with the heaviest of hearts’ that life support must be withdrawn, will hear the latest arguments. Charlie’s parents yesterday accused
Great Ormond Street and the courts of blocking their hope of taking him to America for therapy for his mitochondrial depletion syndrome.
Mr Gard, 32, said the hospital was ‘fantastic’ but added: ‘Unfortunately, they are not specialists in Charlie’s condition – the specialists are in America, where we want to go.’
He said there was no evidence of his son having catastrophic brain damage, despite doctors’ claims. ‘His brain is affected but this medicine can get into the brain and help that,’ he said.
‘He should have had this chance a long time ago. He deserves his chance at last. Let’s get Charlie the treatment he needs.’
Miss Yates, 31, said the new evidence from seven scientists – whose letter last week persuaded Great Ormond Street to reopen the court case – meant Charlie now had a 10 per cent chance.
‘We feel that that’s a chance worth taking,’ she said. ‘We’ve been fighting for his medication since November. Parents know their children best. He’s our son, he’s our flesh and blood.
‘We feel that it should be our right as parents to decide to give him a chance at life, for a medication that’s just oral medicine, with no known major side effects.’
Charlie’s condition, which saps energy from his organs and muscles, means he cannot breathe without an artificial ventilator.
Great Ormond Street doctors say he is irreversibly brain damaged, deaf, blind, and quite possibly in pain.
They have told the High Court it was ‘not a tolerable situation to leave a child in’. Mr Justice Francis agreed, and was backed by the Appeal Court, Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights, which all ruled it would be kinder to let Charlie die.
His death has been ‘scheduled’ twice already, but both times the hospital postponed the removal of his breathing tube.
Miss Yates said: ‘We wouldn’t be able to sit there and watch him in pain, and suffering. We’re not like that, we’re not evil. We’re not doing this for us. I absolutely believe this medication will work. I’m not a doctor but I feel like I am an expert in his condition now.’ Two American congressmen have announced they will table legislation in Washington to give Charlie and his family resident status to help them travel for treatment.
Yesterday the couple were supported in person by Rev Mahoney – a radical pastor repeatedly arrested for protesting against abortion in the United States.
He set up a $5,000 fundraising page online to travel to London and ‘save Charlie’s life’. At the press conference outside Great Ormond Street, he gripped Mr Gard’s arm and prayed loudly for ‘their precious beautiful son who has captured the imagination of the world’.
He said: ‘ I cannot say how
‘We’re not doing this for us’
impressed I am by their heroism, and the fact that these two people that have stood against the courts, bureaucrats, governments and hospital administration to fight for the life of their son. There is no greater power than the love of parents.’
The 63-year-old pastor, who posted on Facebook a photo of himself smiling with Charlie’s parents, credited his own appeals to God for the involvement of Mr Trump and Pope Francis. Great Ormond Street said nothing yesterday but has previously insisted its doctors had explored every medical treatment for Charlie and concluded the proposed therapy ‘would be futile and would prolong Charlie’s suffering’.
It added: ‘This is not an issue about money or resources, but absolutely about what is right for Charlie.’
Yesterday the stance was backed by Neena Modi, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. She said that doctors were bound by the law, which puts the interests of a child above its parents.
The professor added: ‘When situations are hopeless or unbearable or life is limited, the focus of care rightly shifts to ensuring death is pain-free, dignified, and in the presence of loved ones.’