Girl, 10, loses cancer battle after she can't receive treatment abroad
Family devastated as girl, 10, loses cancer battle after being robbed of the chance to be treated abroad due to the Covid pandemic
- Eva Williams, of Wrexham, North Wales, had been due to fly to New York in April
- She passed away on Friday after her family raised £300,000 for her treatment
- Covid travel restrictions meant she couldn’t fly to US for brain tumour treatment
A ten-year-old girl has died after she was robbed of the chance of cancer treatment abroad due to the pandemic.
Eva Williams, of Wrexham, North Wales, had been due to fly to New York in April last year for medical trials but travel restrictions were introduced.
Her family raised more than £300,000 in the hope of getting her private treatment in the United States.
Eva Williams, 10, of Wrexham, North Wales, had been due to fly to New York in April last year for medical trials but travel restrictions were introduced
Eva’s devastated father Paul Slapa, 35, (pictured together) has now revealed his daughter tragically passed away on January 8
But Eva’s devastated father Paul Slapa, 35, has now revealed his daughter tragically passed away on January 8.
Eva had been suffering from a rare high-grade diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma brain tumour.
Mr Slapa said: ‘Over the past week, Eva had lost the ability to speak, eat and swallow fluids, and she has suffered more than any child should ever have to suffer.
‘Watching her still fight each day has been heart-breaking.’
He added: ‘Eva is an inspiration to many, certainly to me, and I cannot begin to imagine how we will go forward from here.
‘How do we wake up each day and go on? How do we face the world without our baby girl with us? Why did this happen to the most caring and loving of little girls?’
Her loving family battled tirelessly to raise more than £300,000 in the hope of getting her private treatment in the United States (pictured: Eva receiving treatment)
Eva’s heartbreaking cancer fight was previously raised by Wrexham MP Sarah Atherton during Prime Minister’s Questions in July.
Boris Johnson said the government would ‘look at everything we can do to support her travel arrangements.’
But her father Paul and mother Carran Williams say her cancer had progressed too far in the summer to be accepted for treatment on the trial.
Speaking previously, her father said: ‘Any of the trials we chose are all experimental treatment, so we will never know whether or not they would have been successful or not.
Eva’s father and mother Carran Williams (pictured together with brothers in background) say her cancer had progressed too far in the summer to be accepted for treatment on the trial
‘But the fact is the chance and opportunity to try was taken away by Covid. That’s the thing that really makes you feel like you have been wronged.’
Eva was diagnosed after she started to complain of dizziness and blurred vision in December 2019.
She had an optician’s appointment and was referred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, where a CT scan then revealed a mass on her brain.
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