This news is heartbreaking because it’s the unnecessary delay in treatment that ultimately determined the fate of this little baby: “The window of opportunity has been lost”
Chris Gard and Connie Yates announced their decision as a high court judge was preparing to oversee the latest round of a five-month legal battle.
The parents have said they want to withdraw their application for him to receive experimental treatment in the US because it was “too late” for it to work.
In a move that would appear to bring an end to a protracted, emotional legal case in which Great Ormond Street hospital (Gosh) argued his life support should be switched off to prevent him suffering further, their lawyer said on Monday that delays meant “it was no longer in Charlie’s interests” to keep him on a ventilator.
Mr Justice Francis had been scheduled to analyse what the couple said was fresh evidence at a hearing in the family division of the high court in London.
Grant Armstrong, representing Charlie’s parents, told the high court in London: “For Charlie, it’s too late, time has run out, irreversible muscular damage has been done and the treatment can no longer be a success.
”He said the parents had made the most painful of decisions, that only parents can make.”
Armstrong said: “Charlie has waited patiently for treatment. Due to delay, that window of opportunity has been lost.”
Baby Charlie Gard was born has a rare genetic condition from his parents and is blind, deaf and can only breathe through a ventilator.
OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON BABY CHARLIE GARD:
The horrible result of socialized medicine may be seen in the plight of Charlie Gard. The brain-damaged British baby whose parents recently lost a legal battle to keep him on life support – has now tugged at heart strings as far away as the Oval Office.
President Trump tweeted out his willingness to lend a hand – and in doing so exposed the debate over who should make life-and-death decisions for Charlie to a massive audience.
“If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so,” Trump wrote.
The tweet, which noted a similar call for compassion from Pope Francis on Sunday night, comes just ahead of Trump’s second international trip later this week, during which he’ll meet with world leaders at the G-20 summit it Germany – a conference at which Trump could cross paths with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Trump’s tweet also implicitly highlights perceived pitfalls in the British health care system — a publicly funded system — at a time the U.S. is undergoing yet another debate about medical coverage.
Gard’s parents have fought the courts to keep their son on life support. Chris Gard and Connie Yates want to bring Charlie to the U.S. for experimental therapy. But doctors at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, who have been caring for Charlie, were granted permission by a court to turn off his life support. Though it was expected Charlie could be removed from the essential devices as soon as Friday, the hospital said in a statement it was putting together unspecified plans to give the 11 month old and his parents “more time together as a family.”
Read more: The Guardian
