The Italian government sent an ambulance on a military plane to take a newborn baby from a hospital in Bristol in a highly unusual move after the boy’s parents said doctors could do nothing more for the boy.
The baby, less than a month old, has not been identified. Sky News understands that her parents are of mixed Italian and Nigerian origin, but are UK residents.
The Italian government says the boy has a “very serious heart malformation” and that it intervened after the Royal Bristol Children’s Hospital was unable to offer further treatment.
Lawyer and former Italian senator Simone Pillon told Sky News that the hospital was on the cusp of a legal process with the parents to end the treatment, but was held out before any High Court hearing could take place, in favor of cooperate with the Italian offer.
The baby was flown out of the UK and Italian doctors began operating on him on Wednesday.
Mr Pillon, who has previously intervened to help other parents take their children to Italy for treatment, classified this case as significant in pediatric care.
He said it paves the way for children to be offered treatment abroad without parents having to go to court, as we have seen in previous high profile cases.
“I think if we find a way to cooperate in the best interests of children, we will all win – there are no losers,” he told Sky News. “We thank the hospital and the British doctors. The family also wants to thank them.”
He added: “The decision is important to ensure the safety of the baby. I think that today we have written a good page in the relationship between Italy and the United Kingdom and between Italian and British doctors in the best interests of the children.”
A spokesperson for University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are working with Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital to support the safe transfer of a newborn patient to Rome. Due to patient confidentiality, it would not be appropriate to go into specific details. about patient care.”
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Pillon said Italian doctors began operating on the baby on Wednesday and that surgery was due to continue on Thursday.
The Italian Prime Minister’s Office said that an Air Force flight C130 landed at Ciampino airport, outside Rome, at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 23 with “a newborn of Italian citizenship, born ago a few days in the UK.”
The baby has been transferred to the Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital in Rome.