While Charlie Gard, a baby only a few months old, is fighting for his life, his parents are waging another war and have just lost a big battle.
A court in England has ruled that doctors can turn off devices that keep a child alive, against the will of the parents.
The child suffers from a rare condition called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome that affects 1 in 16 people and he is the only one who suffers from this disease, which has no cure.
The syndrome causes the cells to malfunction, stopping the flow of energy. In Charlie’s case, this leads to the death of his brain, kidneys, and muscle cells.
Although there is no cure, it seems that there are some treatment options that exist and have just appeared that looks promising and it seems that they could reverse the symptoms.
This is a chance his parents are desperate to take. “It’s worth this chance,” Chris pleaded in court, but the judge refused or could not hear him.
The judge immediately delivered his decision and said that the doctors could disconnect the child from the devices, allowing him a natural death.
Chris and Connie, the child’s parents, raised a million pounds to take Charlie to America, but experts said that even with that proposed treatment, the child’s brain death is permanent.
The couple said they would not leave until they took their child to America to try that treatment, to know that they had tried everything they could.