Donations for terminally ill baby continue despite ruling

AN ANONYMOUS donor has given more than £27,000 to a fund for a terminally ill baby at the centre of a life-support treatment dispute even though a High Court judge has ruled the boy should be allowed to “die with dignity”.

Mr Justice Francis decided that doctors could stop providing life-support treatment for Charlie Gard on April 11 after analysing the case in a hearing at the Family Division of the High Court in London. But money is still being donated to a fund launched by eight-month-old Charlie’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, and a website shows that an unnamed donor gave more than £27,000 10 days ago.

Charlie’s parents, who are in their 30s and come from Bedfont, west London, had hoped to be allowed to take him to America for a treatment trial.

Specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital disagreed and said life-support treatment should stop.

Mr Justice Francis ruled in the hospital’s favour and concluded that Charlie, who suffers from a rare genetic condition and has brain damage, should move to a palliative care regime.

Charlie’s parents are considering their next move and hospital bosses said treatment would continue until the couple had decided whether they wanted to challenge the judge’s decision at the Court of Appeal. They had appealed for money on a GoFundMe website to cover doctors’ bills in the US and reached their £1.2m target shortly before the High Court trial.

People have continued to give money despite Mr Justice Francis’s decision and the fund has topped £1.3m.

Mr Justice Francis heard that Charlie, who was born on August 4, had a form of mitochondrial disease, a condition which causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. Specialists in the US had offered a therapy called nucleoside but the judge said experts agreed that the treatment could not reverse Charlie’s structural brain damage.

Charlie’s mother has previously indicated on the GoFundMe website what will happen to the money if life-support treatment stops. She said: “We have thought long and hard about it and we would set up a charity for mitochondrial depletion syndromes (there are others that are more common than Charlie’s specific gene).

“We’d like to save other babies and children because these medications have been proven to work and we honestly have so much belief in them.”