Indi Gregory, the baby whose parents battled the courts to have her life support extended, has died on 13th November.
In a statement, Indi’s father, Dean Gregory, said he and his wife, Claire, “are angry, heartbroken and ashamed. The NHS (National Health Service) and the Courts not only took away her chance to live a longer life, but they also took away Indi’s dignity to pass away in the family home where she belonged.”
Jacopo Coghe, spokesman for Italian pro life foundation Pro Vita Famiglia, shared the father’s words on X, formerly Twitter.
“They did succeed in taking Indi’s body and dignity, but they can never take her soul,” Dean Gregory said. “They tried to get rid of Indi without anybody knowing, but we made sure she would be remembered forever.”
“I knew she was special from the day she was born,” the father said, adding that his wife “held her for her final breaths.”
Indi suffered from a rare metabolic disorder known as mitochondrial disease, and her family was fighting a court order that she be removed from life support, as was the case of several other children in recent years, including Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard.
Indi, who was 8 months old, was transferred from Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham to a hospice on 11th November, according to a statement issued by Christian Concern, an advocacy group helping the family. The statement confirmed the infant’s life support was removed as per the Court of Appeal ruling from 10th November.
According to Christian Concern, Indi was transferred from the hospital to an ambulance with a security escort. The police were present outside of the hospital.
Indi was then transferred to a hospice without incident and was relaxed and slept during the journey, the group said.
At the hospice her life support was removed. At some point she stopped breathing during the night, but then recovered. “She is fighting hard,” her father said at that point.
The Vatican released a statement on 11th November saying that: “Pope Francis embraces the family of little Indi Gregory, her father and mother, prays for them and for her, and turns his thoughts to all the children around the world in these same hours who are living in pain or risking their lives because of disease and war.”
Indi was granted Italian citizenship on 9th November, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni personally engaged in the state’s wish to bring the little girl to Bambino Gesù pediatric hospital in Rome for further treatment.
On the evening of 10th November, some of the most senior judges in the U.K. ruled that the Italian intervention in Indi’s case under the Hague Convention, which Italy cited in its appeal, was “wholly misconceived” and “not in the spirit of the convention.”
Justices Peter Jackson, Eleanor King and Andrew Moylan refused the family permission to appeal a ruling that said Indi’s life support could not be removed at home. Instead they ordered that Indi’s life support be removed immediately.
The Bambino Gesù Paediatric Hospital in Rome had agreed to accept Indi for treatment and to carry out the right ventricular outflow tract stent procedure that was put forward by medical experts. The Italian government had offered to fund the treatment at no cost to the NHS or U.K. taxpayers.
After Indi’s death, Bishop Patrick McKinney, Bishop of Nottingham, and Bishop John Sherrington, Lead Bishop for Life Issues, called for ‘greater weight to be given to the parental voice.’
“The legal battle between the NHS Trust and her parents shows again the need for greater weight to be given to the parental voice in these complex and sensitive cases. A simple way to begin to remedy this would be to amend the Health and Care Act 2022 by reintroducing Baroness Ilora Finlay’s amendment on ‘Dispute resolution in children’s palliative care’[1] formulated after the death of Charlie Gard,“ the bishops said.
“We will continue to contribute to wider discussions on questions of when treatment becomes disproportionate to any possible benefit and the duty of the continuation of basic care, including assisted nutrition and hydration, to protect the good of every child.”