The mother of a severely disabled five-year-old girl who was flown to an Italian hospital to continue life support is seeking a citizenship for her daughter after winning a historic legal battle.
Tafida Raqeeb was moved from London to the Gaslini children’s hospital in Genoa on Tuesday after parents Shelina Begum, 39, and Mohammed Raqeeb, 45, won a High Court fight with hospital bosses earlier this month.
Mrs Begum, from Newham, east London, today thanked the hospital for ‘believing in her daughter’s recovery’ during a press conference after she was taken by chartered plane to Italy.
She added the transfer was ‘extremely smooth’ and Tafida – who suffered a traumatic brain injury – was stable and ‘turning her head from side to side’.
Tafida Raqeeb was moved from London to the Gaslini children’s hospital in Genoa on Tuesday after parents Shelina Begum (right), 39, and Mohammed Raqeeb (left with his wife), 45, won a High Court fight with hospital bosses earlier this month
Mrs Begum, from Newham, east London, today thanked the hospital for ‘believing in her daughter’s recovery’ during a press conference after she was taken by chartered plane to Italy
‘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 said.
She added: ‘I just believe that since Tafida is in Italy it will be wise for her to have Italian citizenship.’
She said the family are crowdfunding for Tafida’s treatment but the money ‘should not run out’.
‘We do have financial sponsors in place. Should we not be able to raise the funds then the financial sponsors will come in and pay for the treatment.’
She said she did not want to disclose how much the hospital is charging.
‘My hope for Tafida would be to see her improve every day, something that she has been doing in the last eight months,’ she added.
Tafida (pictured), an outwardly healthy, happy little girl who had just started school, was left brain damaged in February when a blood vessel burst in her brain
Ms Begum said she was grateful to the ‘nurses in the UK who have also done an amazing job looking after Tafida’ and to the public for the ‘love and support and warmth they have shown to Tafida’.
She said she feels ’emotionally drained’, adding: ‘I’m sure everyone knows that Tafida was a very happy, bubbly child before February, and in February our lives have actually been turned upside down.
‘She wasn’t born unwell, she wasn’t born with a condition, this thing just suddenly happened.’
Tafida’s mother and her father had said life-support treatment should continue and they should be allowed to move their daughter to a hospital of their choice.
Tafida arrives at Genoa airport in Italy before she is transported to the city’s Gaslini children’s hospital after her parents won permission at the High Court in London
Bosses at the Royal London Hospital disagreed.
Specialists at the hospital said further treatment would be futile because the youngster had permanent brain damage, was in a minimally conscious state and had no chance of recovery.
Mr Justice MacDonald ruled in favour of Tafida’s parents after analysing evidence at a High Court trial in London.
They said they thought she had a ‘quality of life’.
They said they wanted to take Tafida to a country where she would keep getting life-support treatment and where doctors’ views on quality of life were in line with their own.
Lawyers representing Royal London Hospital bosses told Mr Justice MacDonald that blood vessels in Tafida’s brain were ‘tangled up’.
Ms Begum said she was grateful to the ‘nurses in the UK who have also done an amazing job looking after Tafida’
They said the youngster could not swallow, taste, see, breathe for herself, or ‘experience touch’ in large parts of her body.
The judge was told that all doctors asked for an opinion, including Italian medics and a specialist at Great Ormond Street in London, agreed that Tafida would never come off a ventilator and would always need artificial assistance.
He heard that specialist doctors thought Tafida was ‘beyond experience’.
On February 8 Tafida was rushed to hospital after collapsing at just after 5am. She told her mother her head was hurting before losing consciousness and her 14-year-old brother performed CPR as they waited for an ambulance.
Her parents have spent eight months camping out beside her and have described the ‘agony’ of every-day as their daughter has only a one per cent chance of living
Tafida went through a seven-hour operation at London’s King’s Hospital and was in a coma. Outside the operating theatre, the consultant was frank.
‘He told us: ‘She only has a one per cent chance. Most likely, she is going to die on the table’ ‘ recalls Shelina. ‘We were in agony.’
But while Tafida survived, her condition has been unpredictable.
The morning after the operation her heart stopped. She went into a coma and the family were told if she had not died by noon, she would die within 24 hours.
But to the family’s joy a brain stem test showed that, although Tafida had sustained a brain injury, she was not brain dead. ‘That was the best moment,’ recalls Shelina.
After two weeks, Tafida opened her eyes for the first time. The family started researching the condition. A birth defect, AVM is caused where blood vessels do not form correctly and can rupture.
In the brain, the effects are similar to a huge stroke. Around ten babies a year in England are affected, although the condition may not be picked up until later in life.
The morning after the operation her heart stopped. She went into a coma and the family were told if she had not died by noon, she would die within 24 hours
The family learned that AVM patients like Tafida go into a deep coma but can slowly emerge as the brain builds new connections.
In April, Tafida was transferred to Royal London Hospital. In June the medical staff concluded that any more treatment was pointless. ‘They sat us down and said, ‘Look, we are taking the decision away from you. Any more treatment is futile,’ ‘ recalls Shelina. ‘They would take her breathing tube out and that would be it.’
The couple have spent eight months camping out beside Tafida. Their ‘home’ is a single bedroom with shared facilities in a house provided by a charity. Shelina has not been home since February.
‘Most days I am with Tafida from 8am until midnight when Mohammed takes over,’ she says. ‘If I can’t be there — because of seeing lawyers — family step in. We don’t want her ever to wake up and feel frightened or wonder, ‘Where’s Mummy and Daddy?’
‘This has been a victory for all parents. It shows that parents’ rights won’t be taken away. And it recognises the value of disabled children. Tafida might be profoundly disabled but her life is still of value.’
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