Doctors differ on care of chronically ill baby Charlotte

THE condition of a premature baby clinging to life in an oxygen box has improved, several doctors told the High Court yesterday.

A paediatrician known as Dr H said 17-month-old Charlotte Wyatt was more settled and was making facial movements.

She said since the New Year: “Her general condition has improved, she was more settled, spending more time awake but not in distress, and not requiring as much sedation.

“She does make facial movements but I have never seen her smile,” she said.

“She kicks her legs but she kicks her legs because she can’t do anything else I feel, not because she is experiencing any emotion.”

Dr H said putting Charlotte on a ventilator if her condition gets worse would not be in her best interests.

Last October doctors won the legal right not to resuscitate Charlotte after arguing that she was brain-damaged and “had no feelings other than continuing pain.”

Charlotte weighed just 1lb and measured only five inches when she was born three months premature at St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth, in October 2003, and has serious brain, lung and kidney damage.

Now the High Court is due to hear evidence from experts saying she can now see, hear, smile and enjoy being cuddled.

A doctor known as Dr G, said: “Certainly I don’t think it’s unethical to ventilate her, I certainly don’t think it would make her life intolerable.”

The child’s parents, Darren Wyatt, 33, and Debbie, 23, are fighting for all possible treatments for their daughter.