Trump offers to help dying British boy
BRITAIN: United States President Donald Trump has made an 11thhour intervention in the case of a terminally ill English baby by offering help to save him.
Charlie Gard, aged 10 months, has been at the centre of a lengthy legal battle as his parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, fought for him to be allowed to undergo a therapy trial in the US. Having lost the fight, the couple are spending their last hours with him before his life support is turned off.
Trump waded into the legal struggle via Twitter to state that he would be ‘‘delighted’’ to help the terminally ill baby.
‘‘If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the UK and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so,’’ he wrote.
His intervention came after Pope Francis called for Charlie’s parents to be allowed to ‘‘accompany and treat their child until the end’’.
The support could offer Charlie’s parents a glimmer of hope after exhausting every avenue in their heartbreaking legal battle.
It is understood that a doctor and a hospital have been lined up to help if an agreement is reached.
Charlie’s parents were given more time to say goodbye to their son, who suffers from a rare genetic condition and has brain damage, after making an emotional video plea. Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London had been due to turn off his life support last weekend.
The boy’s plight has touched people around the world. and the family received donations totalling more than £1.3 million to take him to the US for therapy.
His parents, from Bedfont, west London, asked European court judges in Strasbourg to consider their case after judges in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court in London ruled in favour of the doctors. But last week the European Court of Human Rights refused to intervene.
A specialist who would oversee any treatment Charlie had at a hospital in the US told the High Court that therapy would provide a ‘‘small chance’’ of a meaningful improvement in Charlie’s brain function.
Giving evidence via a telephone link from America, he said: ‘‘It may be a treatment, but not a cure. [Charlie] may be able to interact, to smile, to look at objects.’’
– Telegraph Group