His name is DM, he is just one month old and suffers from a serious congenital heart disease. His father is from Treviso, his mother is Nigerian. He has Italian citizenship but his father has been resident in England for years. But, the parent claims, English health protocols do not provide treatment for this type of pathology. And therefore the newborn, not receiving the necessary care, would have faced even more serious complications. While a hearing scheduled before the English Family Court would have decreed the cessation of treatment. Now the child is at the Bambin Gesù pediatric hospital. To get him there, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers activated the military air force. A C130 flight picked him up and took him to Ciampino at 6.30pm on Tuesday 23 April.
Treatments and protocols
The father thanked the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Italian consul in London Domenico Bellantone. And through his lawyer Simone Pillon he told the Corriere della Sera: «Now we hope that the entire medical process goes well and we can reach our child’s recovery soon». The baby arrived in Rome inside an incubator. “A prenatal diagnosis had been made and for this reason the English doctors had advised my clients to terminate the pregnancy”, says Pillon, who assisted Indi Gregory’s family last year. «But the couple is very Catholic and refused to consider the possibility. They knew that the baby would have problems at birth but they were convinced that he would still be treated.” But the problem is that “English health protocols provide that treatment can start from a newborn’s weight of two kilos”.
The bar
But once it reached two kilos, «the doctors moved the bar, saying that the baby should have reached at least two and a half kilos. And so the parents understood that it was all a way to buy time and lead him to the end of his life. So they decided to undertake the process of moving to Italy, to a facility dedicated to the care of minors”, concludes Pillon. The Bristol Royal hospital for children he therefore made an agreement with Bambino Gesù. The cardiac surgeon Lorenzo Galletti instead immediately gave his availability. The child underwent two surgeries to have the aorta banded. Already today he could go back under the knife: «The doctors have said that the situation is good even if at the moment there is talk of hope. And they said that the little one has a great desire to live”, concludes Pillon.
