An 11-year-old girl who was given chemotherapy to battle bone cancer against her mother's wishes has died.
Croatian youngster Lana Bendelja was diagnosed with an osteosarcoma in 2018 and her case became well known in the country when her mother Marijana Prpic refused to let her daughter be treated.
Since her daughter's death on Monday, July 8, Ms Prpic has been accused of squandering money donated for her daughter's care.
Ms Prpic had said she didn't want her daughter given chemo and wanted her to be treated abroad instead.
Around 10 days after the diagnosis the mother reportedly started a Facebook page to appeal for donations and claimed that her daughter needed medication that is not available in Croatia.
But doctors in her home country claimed that osteosarcoma is treated there in the same way as in other European countries, so they reported the mother to Social Services and the Ministry of Health .
Lana was treated with chemotherapy without her mother's approval.
Director of the Clinic for Children's Diseases Goran Roic said at the time: "The termination of the treatment and the nature of the disease in the minor patient would be detrimental for the patient."
He claimed that the treatment was fully covered by health insurance and even if that was not the case the hospital could have helped so donations were not necessary.
Ms Prpic continued to accept donations and did not cooperate with the medics while the girl was still receiving treatment in the hospital, according to local media.
The unnamed father of the girl, who the mother was reportedly stopping from seeing his child, started a court procedure asking for an independent decision to be made on his daughter's treatment.
Ms Prpic discharged her daughter from the Croatian hospital and took the girl to Germany, but they returned a few months later and Lana was further diagnosed with metastasis.
Since her daughter's death, Mr Prpic's ex-boyfriend and father of Lana's half-sister Ivica Seretinek claims that she used the money from the donations for her personal shopping.
The mother has reportedly lost custody of her other children.
The investigation is ongoing.
