TOthe center of a legal battle just eight months old. Then Gregory, the little girl suffering from a rare and serious pathology for which an English court ordered a stop to vital treatments, died during the night. The announcement was made by the father, Dean Gregory: «My wife Claire and I are angry, heartbroken and ashamed».
Then Gregory died in the night
On 6 November the Meloni government met in an extraordinary session and granted Italian citizenship to the little girl to allow her transfer to the Bambino Gesù in Rome. Last Saturday, however, due to the English court’s decision, she was transferred under police escort from the Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham to a nearby hospice.
The father: «We are heartbroken and full of shame»
There she was gradually stopped on assisted ventilation and was hooked up to alternative tools with the administration of palliative drugs to alleviate her suffering. The agony lasted a day and a half and ended at 1.45am on Monday morning, 2.45am Italian time. Her mother “held her with her for her last breaths,” her father said.
A heartbreaking story, which ended up being fed to the media and politics. The human story is disarming: the excruciating pain of the parents is understandably unable to accept the doctors’ prognosis. And much less can he come to terms with the decisions of a court.
But what then broke out around this story, unfortunately as dramatic as many, many others, did not ease the pain. The body of a little girl has become a symbol of the end-of-life campaign, despite herself.
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Matteo Salvini reports his father’s words in a post: «My daughter died, my life ended at 1.45am. The NHS and the courts not only took away her chance to live, they also took away the dignity of dying in her home. They managed to take Indi’s body and dignity, but they will never be able to take her soul. I knew she was special from the day she was born, they tried to get rid of her without anyone knowing but Claire and I made sure she would be remembered forever.”
And if, said by Indi Gregory’s father, these are words full of meaning, it is clear that their (possible) exploitation is profiteering.
The doctors’ prognosis, the court decisions, the pain of Indi Gregory’s parents
For the hospital doctors and the British judges, Indi’s illness was terminal and for this reason the separation from the main vital devices had been ordered. The magistrates endorsed “the strong evidence” in support of the Nottingham hospital’s prognosis, linked to a now definitive absence of “interactions” on Indi’s part and to signs of his “significant suffering” caused by the “invasive” treatments .
“Pro-life” Christian associations in Great Britain had mobilized for Indi. And many others in Italy. The family’s lawyer is the former Lega senator Simone Pillon, who has always been at the forefront of pro-life and pro-family battles.
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The case of little Indi Gregory has precedents. Let’s remember Alfie Evans, a 23-month-old Liverpool boy with a neurodegenerative condition who died in 2018 after a six-month legal battle. Even in that case, given the conflict between the opinion of the doctors and that of the patient’s parents, the English Royal High Court intervened, ruling in favor of the doctors. That’s what the law requires.
Even in that case, at the request of the then opposition MP Giorgia Meloni and the Northern League parliamentarian Simone Pillon, the child was granted Italian citizenship the day after the removal of the machinery in the hope of a transfer to the Child Jesus which, however, never occurred. Little Alfie died four days later, after five days of treatment interruption.
Another similar case is that of Charlie Gard, died on 28 July 2017, after a fight between family and doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Even in that case, the request for transfer to the Bambin Gesù in Rome was attempted, in vain.
Citizenship to “ensure further therapeutic developments”
The granting of Italian citizenship in cases like these takes place «pursuant to art. 9, paragraph 2, of law 5 February 1992, n. 91″. The reason lies in the interest of the national community “in ensuring further therapeutic developments for the minor”. Therapeutic persistence evidently cannot be considered a therapeutic development. And, as he told Adnkronos Salute Lorenzo D’Avackformer president and member of the National Committee for Bioethics (Cnb), «The story of little Indi, from the available elements, seems to be configured in this case: theThe code openly states that the doctor must treat as long as he is able to contain the patient’s health conditions.”
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