Israel’s offer to treat two-year-old girl with severe brain damage is welcomed

The Board of Deputies have welcomed Israel’s approach to the Health Secretary to allow a two-year-old suffering from irreversible brain damage to be treated in Tel Aviv.

Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein appealed to the British government, through Matt Hancock, to reverse a decision made by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust who concluded “there was no prospect of her ever getting better”.

A High Court judge ruled that Alta Fixsler should be put into palliative care, agreeing with lawyers for the hospital in May.

But the family have requested that she be treated in Israel.

Board President Marie van der Zyl said: “We welcome Israel’s offer to transfer Alta Fixler for treatment, in accordance with her parents’ wishes. We have written to the Department of Health and Social Care to ask that this be seriously considered.”

In May Mr Justice MacDonald, sitting in the Family Division of the High Court, put paid to the hopes of Alta’s strictly Orthodox parent  to take their daughter to a Jerusalem hospital for further treatment.

He told lawyers for Alta’s parents, and the hospital, that the child had “no prospect of recovery”, and that taking her abroad would expose her to “further pain”.

Alta, who suffered a brain injury at birth, is unable to breathe, eat or drink without medical intervention.