The mother of a five-year-old girl with a serious brain injury is seeking Italian citizenship for her daughter, after winning a legal fight to prevent her life support being switched off.
On Tuesday, Tafida Raqeeb, from Newham, east London, was transferred from the Royal London hospital, where she was on ventilation, to the Gaslini children’s hospital in Genoa.
It followed a high court justice’s decision earlier this month against doctors at the Royal London, who said it was in Tafida’s best interests for life support to be withdrawn because she had no awareness or prospect of recovering. The judge, Alistair MacDonald QC, also ruled that she could be taken to Italy for treatment.
At a press conference at the Gaslini on Wednesday, Tafida’s mother, Shelina Begum, thanked the hospital for “believing in my daughter’s recovery” and said the transfer by chartered plane was “extremely smooth”.
Begum said: “I visited Tafida this morning, she is stable, she was awake, fully awake, turning her head from side to side. I told her that mummy and daddy are here and the whole family are coming.”
She added: “I just believe that since Tafida is in Italy it will be wise for her to have Italian citizenship.”
During a week-long hearing last month, the court heard that Tafida could not see, feel, taste or move, but could live for up to 20 years on ventilation. Begum claimed the doctors were wrong to say her daughter had no awareness and had been consistently wrong about her prognosis.
Begum, an immigration lawyer, and her husband, Mohammed Raqeeb, wanted to take Tafida to Italy because hospitals there usually keep patients on life support until they are brain dead. They also expressed a hope that the Gaslini would perform a tracheotomy, enabling Tafida to be ventilated at home.
Begum told the court that even if the judge ruled her daughter could not be withdrawn from life support, she wanted her to be treated in Italy as there had been a breakdown of trust with the Royal London.
By Wednesday afternoon, the family had only raised just over £50,000 of the £400,000 target to cover legal and treatment fees but Begum said at the press conference that the money “should not run out” as “financial sponsors” would step in if donations were insufficient.
It emerged during the high court hearing that a Saudi prince had offered to help pay for Tafida’s treatment and that her transfer to Italy was being funded by the conservative community platform CitizenGO, which intervened in other end-of-life cases involving children, including those of Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans and Isaiah Haastrup.
Begum declined to say how much the Gaslini was charging, but on the crowdfunding page she estimated the cost of continuing life-sustaining treatment at £280,000.
She said: “My hope for Tafida would be to see her improve every day, something that she has been doing in the last eight months.”
