Charlie Gard is free to die now, as nature probably intended. In the end, the final, desperate hope of a cure for this terminally ill child faded away, as the doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital knew and said all along. His desperate parents, who fought against the dying of the light, will now experience what no parent wants to experience. I hope society can learn something from this awful tragedy.
I hope Charlie’s parents now step away from the spotlight and seek privacy. Throughout, they have been appallingly badly advised, if they were advised at all. Their public utterances, and those of their so-called official spokesman Alasdair Seton-Marsden, have divided the country, especially as the Gards now allege that Seton-Marsden, a recent Ukip electoral candidate had no authority to speak for them, even though he maintained he did. The truth will out one day, but not today, right?
Charlie’s father Chris made an emotional speech today explaining that they had finally accepted the inevitable, yet there was still a veiled dig at the hospital as he referred to the wasted time that prevented his son obtain earlier treatment in order to live a “normal” life. A normal life was never an option and that’s the saddest aspect of all.
We’ve had American religious fruitcakes in the streets and in the hospital, accusing doctors of attempting to “murder” Charlie and that he should be “set free”. If things had been left solely to God, Charlie would have died ages ago. It was, in fact, the medics who kept him alive. It was the medics who tried to keep him free from pain, it was the medics who showed ultimate compassion and love until the very last. There were no bad people treating Charlie Gard.
Chris Gard said his son would be with the angels soon and if that sustains him at this awful time, then who am I to point out the reasons why he won’t? His son is about to lose the only life he had because of the accident of his birth and the tragedy of his genes. I would not be at all surprised if his parents felt horrendously guilty, even though they shouldn’t. It was not as if they planned their son’s demise.
If I, from a million miles away, could get carried away with the raw emotions of what happened at GOSH, then how about those who were there? The boys’s parents in seemingly blind panic, lashing out at all around? The medics being ritually abused by crazy fanatics? The parents of other sick children being asked to sign petitions about Charlie Gard? Uncomfortable doesn’t go close.
Please can someone with compassion and vision look at what happened here so we minimise the chances of such a ghastly situation ever again being played out in plain sight. No one should have to go through all this, certainly in the public gaze. It’s time to love, not hate. Because, apart from a few idiots, everyone did what they thought was right for Charlie Gard.
