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THE HIGH COURT has ruled that the parents of five year old Tafida Raqeeb can take their daughter to Italy to receive further medical treatment. The ruling came after medics at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, had informed the parents that further treatment was futile.
Tafida’s illness came out of the blue. One morning earlier this year she told her parents she had a headache – and then collapsed. In hospital it was found that some of the blood vessels in her brain were tangled. These had ruptured, causing a catastrophic brain injury. Tafida was kept on life support.
Eventually doctors told Tafida’s parents that she would not recover. They wanted to take her off life support – essentially expecting her to die once the artificial means of keeping her alive were withdrawn. They said this was in Tafida’s best interests.
Tafida’s parents argued that according to their Muslim faith only God could decide when a person would die. The two sides – parents and doctors – asked the Courts to decide how to proceed. Should Tafida be taken off life support – leaving God to decide how long afterwards she would actually die? Or should she be kept on life support – leaving God to decide how long she would survive? A hospital in Italy had agreed to take Tafida and keep her on life support until she died naturally: would the Court let her parents take her there?
In these cases the Court is required to consider which course of action is in the best interests of the child, hearing evidence such as whether the child is experiencing pain and whether they are aware of what is happening. In this particular case, Mr Justice MacDonald ruled that the Court should take into account moral and/or religious factors relevant to parents – while acknowledging that these would be subjective.
The High Court ruled in favour of the parents – who expressed their delight and said that they hoped to leave the UK in around ten days. However, doctors are worried that this High Court ruling could set a legal precedent and have indicated that they might appeal the High Court decision.
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