A retired intensive care doctor and a group of nurses at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) have agreed to transport terminally ill baby Charlie Gard to a hospice care center, where he will spend his final days surrounded by family, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.
As Faithwire reported earlier this week, Charlie’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, ended their months-long legal battle with GOSH after a U.S. neurologist determined that it was too late to try an experimental treatment he believes could have saved the 11-month-old. Charlie will be taken off life support just short of his first birthday.
Following the devastating news about their son, Gard and Yates’ “final wish” was to take Charlie home to die. GOSH doctors fought this request, suggesting that the child could suffer pain or a “distressing or disordered death,” and noting that his ventilator wouldn’t fit through the front door of a house.
They proposed instead that Charlie either stay with them or go to a hospice.
High Court Judge Nicholas Francis said Tuesday that he would rule on where Charlie is to die unless a last-minute deal could be struck between Charlie’s family and the hospital. As of Wednesday, it appears that a compromise has been made.
The doctor and nurses’ offer to transport Charlie to a hospice center came hours after Connie Yates issued a last-minute plea for “any pediatric intensive care doctor to come forward” to help their family.
On Wednesday, Barrister Grant Armstrong, head of the Gard family’s legal team, informed the High Court that a doctor with intensive care experience had been found.
“There is a doctor currently traveling … to be here at court,” Armstrong said, according to the Daily Mail. “Several of the nurses at Great Ormond Street have volunteered to assist in the care of Charlie.”
Armstrong confirmed that the physician “has previous experience in surgery and intensive care” and “could lead a team of pediatric doctors.” He added that “several nurses from Great Ormond Street have volunteered to assist” in the effort, which will be “funded privately.”
“May I pay tribute to these nurses,” he said.
Armstrong also noted that a firm called ResMed had offered to “provide any type of ventilator that is required” to transport Charlie comfortably to his final home.