Tears of Charlie’s mother
The chances of saving her baby son are ‘vanishingly small’, court hearing told
CHARLiE Gard’s mother wept yesterday as a court heard there was a ‘vanishingly small’ chance of saving her terminally ill baby.
Connie Yates, 31, wearing a white flower in her hair, hung her head as doctors said her seven-month-old son should be allowed to die.
Even the American doctor who offered to try an experimental therapy on his rare genetic condition admitted he had not realised how unwell Charlie was.
But he said if the boy lived in the States, he would certainly be getting the pioneering treatment his parents longed for.
At an emotional hearing at the High Court in London to decide Charlie’s fate, his father Chris Gard, 32, hurled his son’s cuddly toy monkey on to a bench in exasperation.
The defiant parents raised an astonishing £1.2million in a bid to take him to the US and pay his medical fees. More than 80,000 well-wishers gave money, including Tamara Ecclestone who put in £10,000 and housewife Helen Barnes, 45, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, who handed over £40,000.
Yesterday in a dramatic twist, one of Charlie’s British doctors accused American medics of being more interested in cash than his suffering.
The Great Ormond Street Hospital expert told the High Court that UK doctors always put the child’s best interests first – but she said in America, ‘provided the parents have money, the doctors there would do anything the parents would like to be done, regardless of what is happening with the child.’ None of the doctors can be named.
The US doctor, giving evidence by phone, agreed US medics were more likely to try ‘last-ditch treatments on those for whom death would otherwise be inevitable’.
He has offered a therapy called nucleosides to try to treat Charlie’s damaged DNA. He has a rare type of mitochondrial disease, which saps energy from organs.
But British doctors do not think it will work. Mr Justice Francis must decide whether to agree to Great Ormond Street’s application to withdraw Charlie’s life support and let him ‘die with dignity’.
Charlie’s parents, from Bedfont, southwest London, are begging the judge to give their son a chance. They were given a glimmer of hope when the US doctor said the treatment might prolong Charlie’s life.
However, the British expert said Charlie was ‘extremely unwell’ and likely to be feeling pain. He was also deaf, and left blind by eyelids too weak to open. She added: ‘Charlie is suffering and that outweighs the small theoretical chance that this may be effective treatment. it has never been about costs for us.’
Debra Powell, QC, for the hospital, said a doctor who saw Charlie’s brain scan from last week wrote: ‘i think he’s in the terminal stages of his illness.’ Miss Powell suggested there was now a ‘vanishingly small chance’ for Charlie.
in his evidence, the US expert said: ‘He seems to be very severely affected neurologically. That makes me less enthusiastic about him coming to the United States.’
The family’s barrister Sophia Roper said: ‘The purpose of life-sustaining treatment continuing has always been to find treatment, not to keep him alive at any cost. if there is evidence of irreversible brain damage... we will not be pressing on.’
Miss Yates and Mr Gard dispute the hospital’s analysis and believe he is growing stronger.
The case was adjourned until today.