Father begs judge not to give up fight for Charlotte
But a hospital argued her quality of life was “terrible”. She was heading “inexorably towards an early death” and should be allowed to die humanely with dignity if her condition seriously deteriorates.
Mr Justice Hedley, sitting in London, said after a two-day hearing he hoped to give his judgment next Thursday.
The heartbreaking dilemma over Charlotte, born three months premature last October, was dramatically described as Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust asked the court for an order allowing its doctors not to ventilate her again if she has life-threatening breathing difficulties.
Yesterday, the second day of the hearing, Mr Justice Hedley was told by Trust counsel that all doctors now agreed that Charlotte’s quality of life was so terrible that ventilating could only lead to her suffering further pain and indignity.
But the baby’s father Darren Wyatt, 33, from Portsmouth, told the judge: “When you get to the stage when you grow to love someone, you can’t just throw them away like a bad egg and say you will get a different egg.”
As his 23-year-old wife Debbie wept at the back of the court, he said Charlotte, who suffers heart, brain and kidney defects, was “a fighter”.
Everything should be done for her, even though she would be disabled.
A committed Christian, he said he believed in miracles: “If the man upstairs says this person should live, then this person should live.”
Charlotte, who doctors say cannot see or hear or interact with the outside world, was born at St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth, in October last year weighing just one pound and measuring only five inches.
Mr Wyatt said doctors should perform a tracheostomy - the insertion of a breathing tube through the throat - so long as Charlotte did not suffer.
If, after five days or so, she continued to deteriorate and reached a “no no” situation, then she could be handed back to “TLC” and allowed to die with palliative care.
He told the court: “Then we would just be there, comforting her and holding her for her last moments and we would let her go and then, that’s it. But at the moment she is not at that stage.”
But David Lock, appearing for the Trust, told the court: “There has been lots of talk about parents’ rights, the interest of the parents, quite properly.
“But ultimately this case is about what is best for Charlotte who is a very, very sick child trapped in a body racked with pain heading inexorably towards an early death.
“The Trust, using their experience of the doctors and the observations of the nurses, want to do the very best they can knowing the mere prolongation of existence is not medical care.
“It is about making the passing of Charlotte as humane, as dignified and as appropriate as possible.”
David Wolfe, counsel for the parents, argued that the blanket declaration sought by the Trust that Charlotte should not receive ventilation of any sort if she needed it was “too blunt and too brutal and lacks humanity”.
During the two-day hearing it was said that Charlotte had never left hospital and an intensive care ventilator had further damaged her frail lungs. She was fed through a tube 21 hours a day and needed a constant supply of oxygen. Doctors said she had “no feelings other than continuing pain”.
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