The Internet exploded last week over the tragic case of baby Charlie Gard who was consigned to die in a hospital bed after a UK court ruled that his parents could not pursue alternative medical options to save his life.
Charlie suffers from a terminal condition that requires experimental medicine to cure him. But due to the British nationalized (read: socialist) medical system, the government can decide who is worthy of saving or not.
But after the story went worldwide, President Trump offered to assist and a US hospital in New York has offered the critical medical care if the UK government will allow the parents to take advantage of it.
It’s a ray of hope in a near hopeless story, and it’s also a case in point for why socialized medicine never works.
Here’s more from Hot Air…
While world leaders debate the fate of an infant on a ventilator, a New York hospital wants to throw him a potential lifeline — if both the US and UK governments will allow it. The Guardian reports this morningthat New York Presbyterian and Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center have volunteered to admit Charlie Gard to administer experimental treatment to reverse his life-threatening condition, if the FDA approves it. Alternately, they will ship the necessary drugs to the UK if they promise to administer it:
The US hospital said it would treat Charlie with an experimental drug pending approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a government regulator.
It said it had “agreed to admit and evaluate Charlie, provided that arrangements are made to safely transfer him to our facility, legal hurdles are cleared, and we receive emergency approval from the FDA for an experimental treatment as appropriate”.
It added: “Alternatively, if approved by the FDA, we will arrange shipment of the experimental drug to Great Ormond Street hospital and advise their medical staff on administering it if they are willing to do so.”
That’s a lot of government approval just on this side of the Atlantic. The UK’s National Health Service has stuck foursquare behind Great Ormond Street Hospital’s refusal to allow Charlie to be taken anywhere else for any kind of treatment, so the alternative does not appear likely to be accepted either. However, it does put additional pressure on Theresa May’s government to explain why NHS and the hospital are so determined to prevent any other options from being exercised by the parents, who understandably want to see if they can save their son’s life.
