A court has refused a last-minute attempt to allow a desperately ill baby to receive end-of-life care at home and get medical treatment in Rome.
The family of seven-month-old baby Indi Gregory, Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, had been battling to halt having her life-support removed.
Indi was diagnosed with a rare incurable mitochondrial disease, but her parents have maintained that despite her disability, she is happy and responsive to their touch.
The judiciary has ruled in favour of removing her life support based on the opinion provided by the doctors.
Judges have ordered Indi’s life-support to be removed immediately, but the time and location have not been specified.
Life Support
In Oct. 2023, Mr. Justice Robert Peel ruled that it was in the best interests of seven-month-old baby Indi Gregory to have her life-support removed.
The family’s lawyers then submitted an appeal to Mr. Justice Peel’s ruling that Indi’s parents cannot take her home for life-support to be removed.
In a turn of events, on Monday (Nov. 6), the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, granted Indi Italian citizenship and released a statement saying: “They say there isn’t much hope for little Indi, but until the end, I will do what I can to defend her life. And to defend her mum and dad’s right to do everything they can for her.”
Prime Minister Meloni
This week, Indi’s Italian guardian made an urgent application to the UK High Court calling on Mr. Justice Robert Peel to cede jurisdiction of the case to him under the 1996 Hague Convention, which deals with international child protection cases.The family, who is supported by Christian Concern, said that “such a development has never happened before in an end-of-life case involving a child in the UK.”
Indi’s parents have failed to persuade Court of Appeal judges and judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to overturn that treatment decision.
On Friday afternoon, Prime Minister Meloni wrote to Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Alex Chalk, calling for the two countries to officially collaborate.
The Bambino Gesù Paediatric Hospital in Rome has agreed to accept Indi for treatment and to carry out the right ventricular outflow tract stent procedure that has been put forward by medical experts.
God’s Image
Christian Concern’s Chief Executive Andrea Williams wrote for Premier magazine to explain the principles at work in Indi’s case.She said that it is “deeply shocking to see judges rule, time after time, that it is in someone’s ‘best interests’ to die.”
“No one knows for sure what will happen to Indi if treatment is continued. It may be unsuccessful. Equally, the skill of doctors in Italy, experimental trials and treatments or the miraculous intervention of God may give Indi much longer, and some quality of life.
“Indi is made in God’s image, just like you and me … Her parents and siblings clearly love her; we should stand with them and Indi with the practical help they need and in prayer.”
“She’s having multiple procedures daily, she’s being ventilated in an intensive care unit, she’s having to have intravenous access sometimes by drilling into her bones to get fluids in if you can’t get them straight into a vein. And that’s not simple,” he said.
“I do think that the judge has tried very hard to be compassionate. And he recognises that a parent in this situation may never want to give up,” he added.
The Epoch Times contacted the Home Office and the Ministry Of Justice for comment.
