Fatal lure of Europe
Department of Health and the American doctor who wants to treat Charlie. President Trump has a very good understanding of the whole case and did not make an off-the-cuff tweet.’
Charlie suffers from a rare mitochondrial condition, which is only known to have affected 16 people in the world. His parents want to take him to the US for experimental treatment, and have raised £1.3million from the public.
However his life support was due to be withdrawn last Friday after the family lost several court battles against doctors who insist his genetic condition is both painful and incurable. He has irreversible brain damage and his lungs cannot function without a ventilator.
His parents’ wish to take him abroad has been blocked by the High Court, Appeal Court, Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights, which backed doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital who say there is no hope and he should be allowed to die. But after the boy’s parents were given the weekend to say their goodbyes, ‘Charlie’s Army’ of supporters exerted pressure on the hospital to change its stance.
In the Vatican’s third intervention, its Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin yesterday said that the Holy See will do everything possible to help.
He said: ‘Overcome these problems? If we can do it, we will.’ The Pope has himself tweeted: ‘To defend human life, above all when it is wounded by illness, is a duty of love that God entrusts to all.’
And yesterday Mariella Enoc, the president of the Bambino Gesu – which is owned by the Vatican and known as the ‘Pope’s hospital’ – tweeted that the pontiff ’s words backing Charlie ‘sum up our mission’. She said she had asked the facility’s health director to check with Great Ormond Street about ‘an eventual transfer of Charlie to our hospital’.
But she said Great Ormond Street was currently blocking the move, citing ‘legal reasons’. She added: ‘I was contacted by the mother, who is very determined.’
The hospital was yet to issue a statement last night, but has previously said everything is geared towards Charlie’s ‘best interests’.
Among those urging Great Ormond Street to drop its case and allow Charlie to fly to the US is pop star Cher, who tweeted the Prime Minister directly and said: ‘If the US can save precious Charlie Gard then send him to us!’ Charlie’s British doctors believe that any attempt to treat him is futile. They draw a distinction between the US approach – to allow experimental treatment if parents wish it – and the UK approach to do what is in the patient’s ‘best interests’.
Mr Trump has tweeted: ‘If we can help little #CharlieGard... we would be delighted to do so.’ However critics have accused him of offering ‘false hope’ to Charlie’s family.
Dr Sarah Wollaston, Tory chairman of the Commons health committee, said the President was ‘wrong’ to offer assistance, calling it a ‘political decision’ as he tries to dismantle Obamacare.
ANOTHER 49 migrants feared drowned yesterday in the Mediterranean, bringing the total dead this year to more than 2,500… Austrian troops and armoured vehicles sent to stem the flow from Italy, where 85,000 have arrived from Libya since January… Spain braced for many more than last year’s influx of 10,250… Britain urged to accept thousands more….
With the migration season approaching its peak – and the UN warning that seven in ten who make the deadly crossing have no claim to refugee status – it is clear the EU is further than ever from finding solutions to the crisis convulsing the continent.
How many more must suffer and die, in the name of human rights, before safe havens are established in Africa and the Middle East – and the fatal lure of Europe’s welcome mat is withdrawn? THE European Parliament is ‘totally ridiculous’ – and that’s official. Indeed, this was the verdict of Jean-Claude Juncker, when only a handful of MEPs turned up to review the EU’s handling of the migrant crisis under Malta’s six-month presidency. Two questions. One: has the brandy-swilling EU commission president only just noticed the absurdity of this overpaid travelling circus, which shunts back and forth between Brussels and Strasbourg each month, costing taxpayers £150million a year in removal expenses alone?
Two: is he still surprised that most British voters want nothing more to do with it? LIKE millions in Britain and around the world, this paper has been profoundly moved by the plight of Charlie Gard and his parents’ burning desire to keep him alive. The Mail does not presume to judge what is best in this case. We reflect only on the moral confusion of a country that cares so deeply about the life of a desperately sick baby, but whose doctors’ union thinks so lightly of aborting human foetuses capable of healthy lives.