A two-year-old Edmonton girl allegedly abused by her parents has died after the Supreme Court of sa国际传媒 rejected a request to keep her on life support.
A source confirmed to the Canadian Press that the toddler died Thursday night at the Stollery Children's Hospital after being removed from a ventilator that was keeping her alive.
Lawyers for the child's parents applied to the Supreme Court Thursday morning for an emergency stay of an Alberta Court of Appeal ruling that allowed doctors to remove the girl from life support.
The lawyers wanted time to file an application for the court to hear an appeal.
But a panel of three Supreme Court justices rejected the stay, ending further legal wrangling.
Doctors testified that the girl, known in documents only as M, would not live long after being removed from the machine.
Court has heard the girl, who had been in a coma for three months, had an irreversible brain injury and would never regain consciousness.
On Wednesday, Alberta's top court upheld an earlier judge's ruling that it was in the girl's best interest to let her die.
The Alberta court further ordered that the parents be allowed one last visit with the girl.
They were escorted from the Edmonton Remand Centre to hospital Thursday afternoon and, under guard, met separately with her for 20 minutes each.
The parents, who cannot be named, are charged with aggravated assault, criminal negligence causing bodily harm and failing to provide the necessities of life. Police had said if the girl died, the charges likely would be upgraded.
Paramedics responding to a 911 call found the girl and her twin sister, both malnourished and suffering from injuries, in an Edmonton home May 25.
The girl who was on life support was in cardiac arrest and quickly slipped into a coma.
Her sister is now in foster care, as is an older brother, who had also been living in the home but wasn't injured.
