Doctors ordered to treat Charlie Gard
DOCTORS IN London must continue to treat a terminally-ill baby at the centre of a life-support legal battle until midnight on Tuesday, judges in the European Court of Human Rights have said.
Chris Gard and Connie Yates want to take their 10-month-old son Charlie Gard to the United States for treatment.
They have exhausted legal options in the UK and hope that European judges will now come to their aid.
A spokeswoman for the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, said judges wanted treatment to continue while they looked at paperwork in the case. Charlie suffers from a rare genetic condition and has brain damage.
His parents want him to undergo a therapy trial in America.
Specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where Charlie is being cared for, say therapy proposed by a doctor in America is experimental and will not help.
They say life support treatment should stop.
A High Court judge in April ruled against a trip to America and in favour of Great Ormond Street doctors. Mr Justice Francis concluded that life support treatment should end and said Charlie should be allowed to die with dignity.
Three Court of Appeal judges upheld that ruling in May and three Supreme Court justices on Thursday dismissed the couple’s latest challenge after a hearing in London.
Ms Yates screamed as Supreme Court justices announced their decision.
Charlie’s parents, who are aged in their 30s and come from Bedfont, west London, have appealed for money on a GoFundMe page to cover doctors’ bills in America. They reached a £1.2m target before the High Court trial.