Baby Charlie is allowed to die: Emotional farewell letter from parents
For months, the parents fought for the lives of their critically ill baby. Now they have lost the legal battle. On Facebook, they published a six-page farewell letter. It says:
The last eleven, almost twelve months have been the best and the worst of our lives. In any case, they have changed our lives. Charlie is Charlie, and we would not trade him for anything in the world. Everything we did was for him.
Baby Charlie suffers from a rare genetic disorder called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome (MDDS), which causes the baby to have irreparable brain damage. He is deaf, can not move and has epileptic disorders.
The attending physicians at London's Great Ormind Street Hospital did not believe that therapy could help the little one."Our son had to stay in hospital for months without treatment", the father accused. The parents wanted to take him to the US for experimental therapy."We just wanted to give him a chance at life"said the mother.
For months, the parents fought in court for his life. But the judges believed the doctors, and thus all therapy offers were knocked out. The parents had no choice but to give up the argument over Charlie's fate.
Parents will never know how life would have changed by treating the little boy. They also accuse him of her letter:
There is only one reason why Charlie's musculature has regressed so much in the meantime? TIME. So much wasted time. If Charlie had previously received treatment, he would have had the potential to become a healthy little boy. But anyway. We are now in July and our poor boy had to lie around in the hospital? without treatment.
Her emotional letter ends with the words, "Mom and Dad love you so much, Charlie, and we're sorry we could not save you." Now the parents spend the last hours with their eleven-month-old son. When they "let Charlie go to the angels," as the Father calls it, is not yet known.
