Tafida Raqeeb's parents
Photo: BreakingNews.ie A five-year-old British girl, whose parents won a legal battle to take her to Italy for medical treatment, has been moved out of intensive care, and into a rehabilitative unit for children with incurable illnesses.
Tafida Raqeeb was transferred to the Galini Children’s Hospital in Genoa from the Royal London Hospital, where she had been since February 2019. The move came after a high-profile court battle in the UK, pitting Raqeeb’s parents against British physicians caring for their daughter.
Raqeeb has been in a coma since February 9, 2019, after she suffered an arteriovenous malformation which resulted in a burst blood vessel in her brain.
In September 2019, Doctors at Royal London Hospital, where Raqeeb was comatose and on life support had asked a court’s permission to end Raqeeb’s life-sustaining treatment, arguing that continuing her life was not in the girl’s best interest.
The court instead allowed Raqeeb to travel abroad for medical treatment.
Doctors at Gaslini Hospital in Genoa, where Raqeeb arrived October 15, said that Raqeeb was moved out of intensive care and into the residential paediatric hospice unit on December 24.
The chief physician of Gaslini’s pediatric intensive care unit said in a press conference that Raqeeb has been stabilised and is now able to be off the ventilator for a half hour or hour at a time, according to Sky TG24.
Doctors now aim to lengthen the amount of time Raqeeb can breathe independently.