Life-support treatment has been withdrawn from a critically ill baby girl who has been at the centre of a legal battle, a campaign organisation supporting her parents has said.
Eight-month-old Indi Gregory has been transferred from the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham to a hospice, Christian Concern said on Sunday.
She stopped breathing on Saturday night but then recovered, the organisation said.
“She is fighting hard,” her father Dean Gregory is quoting as saying.
Indi was born in February with a rare mitochondrial disease, a genetic condition that saps energy, and has been receiving life-sustaining treatment. Her doctors have said she suffers from significant pain and distress, and that treatment is futile.
Mr Gregory and Indi’s mother Claire Staniforth have fought to overturn multiple court rulings on their daughter’s treatment, but have not been successful.
It is understood Indi was transferred from the hospital in Nottingham to an ambulance with a police security escort.
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She is said to have been relaxed and slept during the journey to the hospice.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “Dean and Claire are by the side of their precious daughter Indi, keeping watch over her. We ask for your prayers for them”.
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Pope Francis offers prayers
Baby Indi’s move to the hospice comes after the Court of Appeal dismissed a challenge from her parents on Friday to an earlier ruling that her life support should be removed in either a hospital or a hospice. Her parents had said she should be allowed to have treatment removed at home.
Mr Justice Peel concluded that “extubation and palliative care at the family home” would be “all but impossible”.
Her parents, who are from from Ilkeston, Derbyshire, have also failed in a bid to transfer Indi to a hospital in Rome where she had been offered treatment and Italian citizenship.
The judge ruled a move to Italy would not be in Indi’s best interests and Court of Appeal judges backed that decision.
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The Vatican Press Office released a statement on Saturday saying Pope Francis is praying for the family.
“Pope Francis embraces the family of little Indi Gregory, her father, and her mother; prays for them and for her, and turns his thoughts to all the children around the world at this very hour are living in pain or risk their lives because of illness or war,” the statement said.
