LONDON: The parents of a seriously ill five-year-old girl have launched a legal challenge after doctors said it was in her best interests to be allowed to die.
Tafida Raqeeb was a previously healthy five-year-old who suffered a traumatic brain injury in February and has been on life support ever since at the Royal London Hospital, part of Barts Health NHS Trust, the Asian Age has reported.
Doctors have said there is no chance of recovery and have consulted a range of other medics who all agree that treatment is futile.
However, her parents, from Newham, east London, say experts at Gaslini children’s hospital in Genoa, Italy, are willing to treat her and believe she could emerge from her coma in a few months.
Tafida’s mother, Shelina Begum, a 39-year-old solicitor, and father, construction consultant Mohammed Raqeeb, 45, lodged papers with the High Court on Tuesday morning seeking a review of the case.
The case will be before a High Court judge on Tuesday afternoon to deal with preliminary matters. Mrs Begum, who works for a London law firm, told PA: “Our daughter is currently stable. Everything with the hospital is amicable but we want to take her to Italy to give her the best chance.”
A change.org petition set up by Mrs Begum to support the move has reached more than 5,000 signatures. On it, the family wrote that Tafida suffered “a ruptured blood vessel (arteriovenous malformation) in her brain. “On 9th February, Tafida collapsed at home and suffered a cardiac and respiratory attack.