Charlie Gard has died in a London hospice after having life-support withdrawn.

Charlie Gard, the 11-month-old terminally ill child whose case has dominated international headlines for months, has died in a London hospice after having life-support withdrawn.

On Thursday a British High Court judge ordered that the child be moved to an unspecified hospice, after no agreement on further treatment could be reached between the boy's parents and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Gard’s parents had wanted Charlie to be kept alive until close to the 4th of August, which would have been his first birthday. But Gard’s court appointed guardian told the High Court that no hospice could provide care for intensively ventilated children for a long time, so the parents' wish to spend several days with him could not be fulfilled.

Gard suffered from an extremely rare, inherited mitochondrial disease called encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. The typically fatal condition causes progressive muscle weakness, brain damage, and organ failure. His parents had sought to take Gard to the US for experimental nucleoside therapy, but the High Court ruled in April that it was in the child’s best interests to have life-support withdrawn.

Charlie Gard dies in London hospice
Xavier Symons
Creative commons
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consent
courts
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medical futility
withdrawal of life support