#CharlieGard: President Trump tweets to offer of help to Charlie Gard

The 10-month-old is currently in hospital in London.

A court decision last week ruled that his life support should be turned off.

The President tweeted: ‘If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.’

This weekend Pope Francis called for Charlie’s parents to be allowed to “accompany and treat their child until the end”.

In a statement, the Vatican press office said the Pope “is following with affection and sadness the case of little Charlie Gard and expresses his closeness to his parents.

“For this he prays that their wish to accompany and treat their child until the end is not neglected”.

Charlie suffers from a rare genetic disorder and has brain damage. He is receiving care at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

His parents have gone through a lengthy legal battle for their son to undergo a therapy trial in the U.S., despite doctors saying the treatment would not help.

Last Thursday the couple released a video saying they had been told Charlie would die on Friday, but they were eventually given more time before his life support was switched off.

 

They said they had been denied their final wish to be able to take their son home to die and felt “let down” after losing their legal fight.

The hospital later confirmed it was “putting plans in place for his care”.

His parents, both in their 30s and from Bedfont, west London, asked European court judges in Strasbourg, France, to consider their case after judges in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court in London ruled in favour of GOSH doctors.

But last week the European Court of Human Rights refused to intervene.

During a hearing at the High Court in April, Mr Justice Francis considered evidence from a specialist who would oversee any treatment Charlie had at a hospital in the US.

The specialist, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said therapy would provide a “small chance” of a meaningful improvement in Charlie’s brain function.

  

He told the court via a telephone link from America: ”It may be a treatment, but not a cure.

“(Charlie) may be able to interact. To smile. To look at objects.”