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U.K. doctors and judges would rather let a critically ill child die in England than let another country’s medical system try to save her life.
A baby girl named Indi Gregory passed away this morning at a hospice in England. Doctors with the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) had claimed that there was nothing they could do for the eight-month-old infant, who had a rare and serious mitochondrial disease, so they sought — and were granted — a court order allowing them to withdraw Indi’s life support over the wishes of her parents.
Although this has happened before in the U.K., the international media took particular notice because the nation of Italy had already stepped in and offered to provide immediate treatment for Indi. And yet, for some baffling reason, U.K. doctors and courts still decided that Indi should die.
Indi’s parents, Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, desperately sought an alternative after doctors at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, England, said that Indi’s disease was incurable and there was nothing they could do. The doctors claimed it was in Indi’s “best interest” that she be taken off of life support.
Dean and Claire found a would-be guardian angel in the nation of Italy. The president of Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome had even laid out a detailed plan in how they would treat Indi. When the U.K. denied the request, Italy granted Indi citizenship, and her Italian guardian, Dr. Matteo Corradini, Italian consul in Manchester, attempted to utilize Article 9 (2) of the 1996 Hague Convention in order to get the judge to hand proceedings over to him.
Italy said that it would pay Indi’s medical costs at no expense to the NHS or the U.K. Before a hearing on Friday to determine whether Indi would be allowed to travel out of England, her father pleaded for a chance to try to save her life. “For the hospital and the UK Courts to simply ignore the offer from the Italian government is disgraceful. I appeal to the British government to allow Indi to come to Italy before it is too late. As a father I have never asked or begged for anything in my life, but I am now begging the British government to please help prevent our daughter’s life from being taken away.”
Despite his heartfelt petitions, Italy’s creative legal efforts and its generous offer, and what would seem all reason, the U.K. denied Indi the chance to try treatment.
Lord Justice Peter Jackson, Lady Justice Eleanor King, and Lord Justice Andrew Moylan declined Dean and Claire’s appeal. Jackson called Corradini’s efforts “wholly misconceived” and “not in the spirit of the convention.” He also said that the doctors were put in an “extremely challenging” position because of the legal battle and criticized “manipulative litigation tactics” used in an attempt to frustrate judicial decisions.
Oh, how dare parents fight for the chance to keep their daughter alive rather than bow to the infinite wisdom of the U.K. government!
The court didn’t just deny Indi the right to try treatment in Italy. They also denied her parents the right to take her home, denied their right to appeal, and ordered that Indi be escorted by security to hospice and have her life support removed immediately.
Dean Gregory expressed his feelings about the decision in a statement, saying,
“Claire and I are again disgusted by another one-sided decision from the judges and the Trust. The whole world is watching and is shocked at how we have been treated.
Claire and I have always wanted what is in Indi’s best interests. She has human rights and we wanted her to have the best treatment possible. If the UK did not want to fund it, why can she not go to Italy and receive the treatment and care which the amazing Italian Prime Minister and government has offered?
This feels like the latest kick in the teeth, and we will not give up fighting for our daughter’s chance to live until the end.”
The life support was removed on Sunday and Indi passed away early Monday morning. Following her death, Dean shared his pain, saying,
“Indi’s life ended at 01.45am. Claire and I are angry, heartbroken, and ashamed. The NHS and the Courts not only took away her chance to live a longer life, but they also took away Indi’s dignity to pass away in the family home where she belonged.
They did succeed in taking Indi’s body and dignity, but they can never take her soul. They tried to get rid of Indi without anybody knowing, but we made sure she would be remembered forever. I knew she was special from the day she was born.”
He added that Claire held their daughter “for her final breaths.”
Unfortunately, this is not the first time the U.K. has decided to not only deny parents the right to seek treatment elsewhere or even to bring their child home to die. The U.K. issued similar death warrants to Charlie Gard, Archie Battersbee, and Alfie Evans.
The message in the U.K. couldn’t be more clear: If you bring your child for medical treatment at an NHS facility, he or she automatically becomes a possession of the state.
Doctors and judges claim it is in the “best interest” of children to quit trying to save their life and allow them to die with dignity. That’s not how families see it, of course. Banning a mother and father under threat of armed security from taking their child to another hospital or to even bring them home to die outside of the cold and clinical setting of the medical establishment is not in the child’s best interest.
O. Carter Snead wrote a powerful piece after Alfie Evans’s death in which he painted a vivid picture of the state denying parents the right to seek treatment or a second opinion:
“The heart of the problem is that, according to the UK courts’ interpretation of the Children Act of 1989, a life of permanent disability and dependency, whether long or short, is not worth living. The UK High Court ‘root(ed)’ its opinion in the ethical guidance of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which asserts that ‘it is no longer in the child’s best interests to continue (living)’ in those cases ‘where the severity of the child’s condition is such that it is difficult or impossible for them to derive benefit from continued life.’ Because of his disability, Alfie’s very life was deemed no longer beneficial to him. And therefore it was declared illegal to keep him alive.
This decision reflects a profound, indeed lethal intolerance of dependence and disability. But it is even worse than that. Just as in the Charlie Gard case, the courts here effectively terminated the rights of Alfie’s parents, forbidding them to seek transfer to other facilities that wished to care for Alfie…What began with a hospital’s deadly policy against a child with apparently permanent disabilities ended with a shocking totalitarian intervention by the state, annihilating his parents’ rights in order to ensure Alfie’s demise.”
Snead noted that contrary to the so-called experts, Evans survived, breathing on his own for four days, and yet the U.K. never put him back on life support. Similar to Indi’s plight, Italy had stepped up to help save Evans, but the U.K. said no.
Snead was hopeful that perhaps the U.K. would wake up, writing, “In the wake of this most recent tragic case, let us hope that the UK government changes its laws to give parents the freedom to care for their disabled children and, most importantly, turns away from a perfectionist conception of ‘best interests’ so hostile to imperfection, disability, and dependence that it mandates the death of those who are not suffering nor imminently dying simply because their lives have been judged by able-bodied strangers to be no longer worth living.”
Tragically, nothing has changed.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which represented Indi’s parents, argued in a statement following the court decision to stop Indi’s treatment:
“Life is the most precious gift we have.
There is a hospital prepared to care for Indi in Rome. Indi’s parents desire to give her every chance they can. Why would anyone try to stop this happening for them and for her? To continue to deny them this opportunity is unimaginable.
We need reform. We need families to be free to appoint alternative doctors and medical experts with equal access to the patient’s records. We need proper mediation at the earliest stage rather than parents being dragged into unfamiliar court settings and facing down taxpayer-funded legal teams.”
Is it really in a child’s best interest to be denied the right to try medical care somewhere else? Why does the U.K. government get to decide that rather than parents? Should the U.K. really be wasting taxpayer dollars on fighting to deny parents the right to save their child?
This is truly appalling and it raises many questions as to why the U.K. is so determined to allow children to die rather than let their parents seek medical care elsewhere. Whatever the reason, it can all be traced back to government-run healthcare, which puts bureaucrats and government doctors in charge of decisions over life and death and where dollars and cents matter more than human beings.
The world should be outraged over the death of Indi Gregory. Enough is enough. It’s time for Western political and religious leaders to publicly call on the U.K. to change its cold, heartless policies — before another family is forced to stand by helplessly as their own government pulls the plug on their child’s life.
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