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Parents win battle to keep baby alive

Hasan Suroor

Contrary to all prognosis, the child's condition improved significantly

LONDON: As the two-year-old Charlotte Wyatt lay in her hospital bed, wrapped in tubes and breathing through a ventilator, she did not know that a "death sentence'' which had been hanging over head, as her parents put it, had just been lifted.

For Darren Wyatt, a hotel chef, and his wife Debbie, who won a court battle on Friday to keep their baby alive through artificial means, it was a victory of parental love and sheer persistence over hard medical logic.

Charlotte was born in October 2003 — three months prematurely with brain damage, a weak heart and serious kidney and lung problems. She was so ill that doctors doubted if she would survive the winter.

As Charlotte's condition deteriorated in the following months, doctors had to revive her several times. In October 2004, her chances of survival were regarded so low that doctors at St Mary's Hospital, Portsmouth, went to the court and won the legal right not to resuscitate her if she fell ill again.

Meanwhile, contrary to all prognosis, the child's condition improved significantly and, following an appeal by parents, the court last week ordered a review after doctors said she was making "remarkable progress''.

On Friday, the court lifted the orders it had imposed last year but Mr Justice Hedley, while reversing his own previous judgment, left the door open for doctors to act in the way they deemed fit if the patient's condition deteriorated.

He made clear that the new ruling did not mean that the child's doctor would be expected to "take orders from the family any more than he gives them.

"He acts in what he sees as the best interests of the child — no more, no less,'' he said praising the parents for their "unswerving devotion'' to their daughter but also advising them to have faith in doctors.

The young couple, who are expecting another child, hailed the ruling as "the best birthday present'' for Charlotte on her second birth anniversary.

"We haven't got this huge black cloud hanging over us now,'' said Mr Wyatt.

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