CHARLIE DESERVES HIS CHANCE OF LIFE
Sick tot’s parents in desperate plea
CHARLIE Gard’s parents yesterday vowed to keep fighting for their terminally ill baby.
Connie Yates and Chris Gard spoke near Great Ormond Street Hospital.
The 11-month-old’s parents have been in a protracted legal battle with doctors from the London hospital.
Medics said the experimental treatment the couple want Charlie to have abroad will not help.
The couple handed a 350,000signature petition in at the hospital yesterday, calling for doctors to allow him to be treated abroad.
The High Court in London will decide Charlie’s fate today.
Connie told reporters: “We feel that it should be our right as parents to decide to give him a chance at life.
“There is nothing to lose, he deserves a chance.”
She said the oral medicine they want for Charlie has an “up to 10 per cent chance of working” and has “no known major side effects”.
Charlie has a rare genetic condition which affects energy production and respiration. He is unable to move or breathe without a ventilator.
Doctors say he is also blind, deaf and brain-damaged.
Chris said there is no evidence Charlie has “catastrophic brain damage”. He added: “He should have had this chance a long time ago now.
“They said that it wasn’t fair to leave him on the ventilator for three months for a treatment they didn’t think was going to work.
“He’s now been left for seven months with no treatment. If he’s still fighting, we’re still fighting.”
They spoke after two United States congressmen said they would table legislation to give Charlie and his family US resident status so they can travel there for the treatment.
Justice Secretary David Lidington said the Government had “no role to play” in the case. He told Sky: “It is right that judges interpret the law, independently and dispassionately.
“I do not envy the judges who are having to take decisions on this.”