Tafida Raqeeb: Mum hopes brain-damaged girl will return home

The mother of a severely disabled girl who took her child to Italy for treatment hopes her daughter will be able to return to London.

Tafida Raqeeb was aged five when she was put on life support in early 2019 following a traumatic brain injury.

She travelled to Genoa in October that year after her parents won a landmark High Court legal ruling to take her abroad for treatment.

Shelina Begum told BBC London her daughter is "doing very well".

"Tafida will return. This is her home and this is my home," she said.

"She continues to fight and we see new changes every day. She is stable and we are seeing her emerging.

"The treatments have been beyond belief. We have sacrificed everything, I am here in Italy with Tafida while my son is back in the UK.

"It has been extremely challenging and beyond belief [for our family]."

Tafida, now aged seven, is being treated at Genoa's Gaslini Hospital, having previously been at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London.

In October 2019, NHS bosses had asked a judge to rule that ending Tafida's life-support was in her best interests.

Her mother, solicitor Miss Begum, and father, construction consultant Mohammed Raqeeb, said doctors in Italy would continue to treat their daughter until she was diagnosed as brain dead.

In the end, judge Mr Justice MacDonald sided with Tafida's family, granting her a chance by rejecting the NHS's challenge.

Two-and-a-half years since the ruling, Miss Begum said she harbours no anger about the case.

"The clinicians need to use Tafida's case as an example before making another best interest application to the court," Miss Begum said.

"If I go back to 2019, it is a very painful moment. I did beg those clinicians to please listen to what the Italians are saying and let Tafida go, but they refused.

"The child they said would die in two weeks is still alive.

"I have let go, my anger has gone, but she is living proof that they were wrong and she was right."

Her parents have created the Tafida Raqeeb Foundation and on Tuesday the charity officially launched a campaign to build a medical centre in the UK for treating brain-damaged children.

The charity aims to set up a "bespoke 20-bed Neurorehabilitation Centre for children" which would offer a range of therapies.

"I have actually become the first point of contact whenever there is a challenge within any hospital," Miss Begum said.

"That's when I thought something needs to happen - a centre to be opened to provide this treatment which is not available."

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