Impossible to move Charlie to Rome, Johnson to Alfano (5)

(ANSA) - Rome, July 5 - It is impossible to meet Rome's request to move 10-month-old terminally ill Charlie Gard to the Bambino Gesù Hospital, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano Wednesday. Over the phone, Alfano raised the case and reiterated the Vatican kids' hospital's offer, the foreign ministry said. Johnson expressed gratitude and appreciation for the Italian offer but explained that legal reasons prevent Britain from meeting it.
    Rare-disease specialists at Vatican-owned Rome children's hospital Bambino Gesù are working with other international experts to map out an experimental treatment protocol for Charlie, hospital chief Mariella Enoc said. She said the team was also in touch with US experts. Charlie's mother Connie Yates spoke this morning with the Rome hospital doctors.
    Enoc said London's Great Ormond Street Hospital would agree to a transfer if the Bambino Gesù agreed to implement a British supreme court ruling that Charlie should be taken off life support, but the Rome hospital was unwilling to do this. Yates on Tuesday phoned the Bambino Gesu' and was "very determined" to see if there was a chance of treating the boy, Enoc said - but Great Ormond Street said it could not move the boy from London to Rome for legal reasons. Enoc said this was "sad" but "our doctors and scientists are still looking into the possibility". Enoc said Yates "appears set to stop at nothing" after a British court ordered her son's treatment to be stopped. The Bambino Gesu' offered to help Yates and her husband Chris Gard after Pope Francis said treatment should be provided "until the end".
    Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on Tuesday said the pope had "full confidence" in the Bambino Gesu' management.
    Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said at the presentation of the hospital's annual report Tuesday that its "willingness to welcome Charlie is a mark of your vocation and what you are.
    It's certainly good news for those parents".
    US President Donald Trump has also offered to help and on Tuesday the Sun reported an unnamed US hospital was ready to treat him free of charge despite UK and European court's rulings against useless treatment.
    British Prime Minister Theresa May said that Great Ormond Street will "always consider any offers on new information" about his welfare.
    Charlie's parents want Charlie, who has a form of mitochondrial disease, a genetic condition that causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage, to have treatment in the US. But the hospital's doctors said that, given Charlie's condition, the therapy was unlikely to have a beneficial outcome.