grammar issue

10:49 Dec 16, 2019 

Agree with Amel. No need for a long discussion. The original sentence has a simple typo where IT should be IS. The rewording by Liz is also OK and keeps the same meaning. Note that US English often uses the gerund like this (far more than UK English does). Personally I don't like it that much but there is nothing grammatically wrong with the sentence when the typo is corrected.

07:34 Dec 16, 2019 

Do not get confused by the long discussion. "It" is merely a typo that should be changed to "is."

We believe that disabled and terminally ill children having the right equipment at the right time IS not too much to ask.

01:03 Dec 16, 2019 

maybe more important.

Put the important parts where it's most visible.

if you start the sentence with "we believe ..." it sounds like "our beliefs" are more important that these children. What about this:

"Disabled and terminally ill children having the right equipment at the right time - that shouldn't be too much to ask?"
or
"Having the right equipment at the right time for disabled and terminally ill children - ..."

Also

"We even hear of children dying before their desperately needed equipment reaches them"

"their" makes no sense to me - these children do not own this equipment, nor it is for their exclusive use - it's also for all those who might need this equipment in the future.

"... children dying before the equipment they desperately need reaches them" ?

19:23 Dec 15, 2019 

I agree with your "hypothetical" comment. I have changed my wording to "suggestive", I perhaps expressed myself incorrectly.

19:14 Dec 15, 2019 

I agree with Liz's suggested improvements, and Frank's observation that your original takes sounds clunky and not the way it would be expressed idiomatically by a native-speaker.

18:45 Dec 15, 2019 

I have posted this as an answer. "Is" is not correct here IMO.

18:35 Dec 15, 2019 

@Lara: Music to my ears.

18:07 Dec 15, 2019 

But I would say,
"We believe that it should not be too much to ask for terminally ill children to receive the right equipment at the time it is needed".

17:54 Dec 15, 2019 

@Liz Askew: Your answer is the most stylistically and grammatically correct. The original is awkward and stilted and grammatically barely hangs together, if at all. Here, the subject of the sentence is the gerund "having" and the verb is "is."

17:27 Dec 15, 2019 

sorry, I read it as "is" not "it"..

17:21 Dec 15, 2019 

Yes, it is correct.

It is not too much to ask that disabled and terminally ill children have the right equipment at the right time.