U.K. hospital rejects Vatican offer to help treat ill infant

A British hospital that plans to disconnect terminally ill infant Charlie Gard from life support has rejected treatment help from the Vatican’s children’s hospital.

After Pope Francis and President Donald Trump spoke out in support of Charlie, the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital asked whether the child could be transferred to Rome to receive care.

A spokesman at the Vatican’s hospital said Wednesday that Great Ormond Street Hospital turned down the offer, citing legal reasons, but that officials are still working on a solution.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano that it is “right that decisions continue to be led by expert medical opinion, supported by the courts,” according to the Press Association in the U.K.

Great Ormond Street Hospital declined to comment on the recent development.

Charlie was born in August with a rare genetic condition called infantile-onset encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, according to court records. The disorder causes profound weakness, brain damage, seizures and liver failure, according to England’s National Health Service.

Weeks after birth, Charlie was struggling to hold up his head and was not gaining weight. At 2 months old, he had become lethargic, and his breathing had become shallow, according to court records.

Charlie was transported to Great Ormond Street Hospital, where he has been ever since. Brain damage has robbed him of his ability to move his arms and legs, cry, eat or even breathe on his own.

Charlie’s story spread as his parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, fought in court to be able to try an experimental treatment in the United States to save their son.

The case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights, which declined to hear the matter last week, upholding previous court rulings that therapy would not help and that it was in Charlie’s best interest to prevent further suffering by withdrawing life support.

Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday declined to intervene in the case.

“It’s an unimaginable position for anybody to be in,” May told Parliament when asked about Charlie.

May said that any parent would “want to do everything possible” for their child, but she declined to support a plea from Charlie’s parents to allow the family to travel to the U.S.

“But I also know that no doctor ever wants to be placed in the terrible position where they have to make such heartbreaking decisions,” she said.

“Disgraceful!” Gard and Yates said on Twitter in reaction to May’s statement.

The couple plan to join a protest today at No. 10 Downing St., the British prime minister’s residence in London.

The case has turned into a debate about the right to live or die with dignity.

Pope Francis said last week on Twitter that “to defend human life, above all when it is wounded by illness, is a duty of love that God entrusts to all.”

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said in a statement that Francis has called for Charlie’s parents to be able to care for him until his death.

“The Holy Father follows with affection and emotion the case of little Charlie Gard and expresses his own closeness to his parents,” the statement read, according to Vatican Radio. “For them he prays, hoping that their desire to accompany and care for their own child to the end is not ignored.”

On Monday, Trump tweeted about the case, saying the United States “would be delighted to” help.

Helen Aguirre Ferre, director of media affairs at the White House, said that, “upon learning of” Charlie’s case, the president “offered to help the family in this heartbreaking situation.”

It’s unclear how the U.S. government would be able to assist. Trump has not spoken directly to the family, Aguirre Ferre said, but administration officials have reached out via the British government.

“The president is just trying to be helpful, if at all possible,” she said.

Charlie’s mother has since told the Daily Mail that the support “has given us hope.”

“They are traditional men who believe in the family,” she said of Francis and Trump. “They believe in our case and understand why we believe it is right to continue fighting so hard to save Charlie.”