Heartbreaking story with the lad from Liverpool Alfie Evans. Terrible to imagine what his family are going through.
The scenes today though from protesters were appalling. Trying to storm the hospital, blocking off the road outside, Facebook posts encouraging others to set the fire alarms off.
Do they realise it’s a hospital treating hundreds of other sick children?

A mob generally doesn't care once it's got itself into a frenzy.

I can't for one minute imagine what the lads parents are going through and as a parent myself I honestly don't know what I'd do in their situation.

The rent a mob need to stop making the situation worse though.
There have been comments online from people demanding to know when euthanasia became legal in the UK etc.

Social media strikes the unemployed masses again!

Disgusting scenes. Alfie’s family (dad) have let themselves down but sharing half truths and basically encouraging mob behaviour

Extremely bad behaviour.

Terrible goings on. Local telly reported tonight the mob blocked an access road
with cars for a time. As said above, its awful for everyone concerned, but
the other children being treated (and their parents) must also be respected.

The little lad Alfie has now been granted Italian citizenship, which will hopefully ease the tension there and possibly give his parents the chance to take him to Italy for treatment.

Alfie's parents are just older than kids themselves and this is obviously heartbreaking for them.

I think that we should give them a bit of slack and they seem to have behaved very well under the protracted circumstances of their son's problems and what seems now his inevitable death.

But the mob who have been outside Alder Hey in the past few days want locking up.

tybfc wrote: But the mob who have been outside Alder Hey in the past few days want locking up.

Some of them haven't been there because of the parents?

tybfc wrote:Alfie's parents are just older than kids themselves and this is obviously heartbreaking for them.

I think that we should give them a bit of slack and they seem to have behaved very well under the protracted circumstances of their son's problems and what seems now his inevitable death.

But the mob who have been outside Alder Hey in the past few days want locking up.

Yeah the parents have a right to fight for him if they choose to.

The c-units outside --- they should have been baton'd and taken down the nick and had the book thrown at them!

Like most of those clueless idiots outside, have a better idea of what is best for the child as compared with the medical expertise of those inside.

Going to Italy will change nothing.

hampsteadclaret wrote:Like most of those clueless idiots outside, have a better idea of what is best for the child as compared with the medical expertise of those inside.

Going to Italy will change nothing.

Surely the parents have the ultimate right to decide where and how their son is treated? The medical experts haven't been able to come up with a definitive diagnosis of their son's condition, so why shouldn't they take a chance (their only chance!) in Italy to keep their son alive. They have had to fight numerous legal battles in numerous courts, and most recently have had their case deemed inadmissible by the European Court of Human Rights.
Going to Italy may indeed change nothing, but surely their love for and determination not to give up on their little boy gives them the right to take that chance at the very least?

What’s in the child’s best interest not the parents? Perhaps they should pay more attention to Drs rather than priests and others who are using them to further their own religious interests - whose paying for all these wasted Court applications?

I haven’t seen an Italian Dr making any sort of statement that they have looked at the scans/notes etc and have a treatment!

It's called palliative care and not a cure for the little lad.

This has given the social media mongs the 'right' to be dickheads at a Children's Hospital.

Absolute shame on them.

Burnley Ace wrote:What’s in the child’s best interest not the parents? Perhaps they should pay more attention to Drs rather than priests and others who are using them to further their own religious interests - whose paying for all these wasted Court applications?

I haven’t seen an Italian Dr making any sort of statement that they have looked at the scans/notes etc and have a treatment!

Possibly his life?

Who cares who is paying for it?

And I have seen an Italian Doctor looking at his results.

Why not just abort every child that seems abnormal?

He is a human being with a chance to live and you are behind a keyboard killing him.

Be proud.

tybfc wrote:Possibly his life?

Who cares who is paying for it?

And I have seen an Italian Doctor looking at his results.

Why not just abort every child that seems abnormal?

He is a human being with a chance to live and you are behind a keyboard killing him.

Be proud.

I understand you're a bit passionate about kids with disabilities etc.

However in this case the child is braindead and would die without his life support machine and has no hope of recovery.

The only thing taking him to Italy will do is prolong his "life" until his organs start to shut down even with the life support.

He has no chance of any kind of life.

He is no apparent pain so why not let him go to Rome and let the medics there do what they think they can?

They don't. And they won't. Because they can't.

He will continue palliative care over there so they say... maybe having a man masquerading as God's right hand man around will make a few scousers feel better but it will do absolutely **** all for the patient.

Sad as it is thinking about a baby dying of something like that, if it was somebody who was 80 suffering from a stroke or similar, with absolutely no chance of recovery, is it fair to keep them alive?

A lot of nonsense is being spouted about this situation on social media.

For a start a definite diagnosis doesn’t mean a thing. The Italian doctors have said they won’t be able to cure him, just keep him on life support.

He has been diagnosed with neuro degenerative disease which is a spectrum of many conditions. It is impossible to diagnose which exact condition until you put the brain under a microscope. Even then they might not know l.

What is known is Alfie is in multi organ failure. The initial diagnosis doesn’t really matter once you have got to a point where the organs won’t recover it doesn’t matter if you discover what the condition is, it’s past being cured.

It’s an awful situation all round but I cannot be doing with these people acting like the doctors are killing him. He is on life support, without it he will die. Removing it doesn’t mean they are killing him. Doctors want to help people, they fight tooth and nail to save people

Reports are suggesting that they removed his life support last night and he has been breathing unaided for the last 10 hours....

Is there any subject this forum doesnt have experts on? As bad as the mob some on here.

It’s very sad about Alfie, no one should have to go through that.
However the rent a mob idiots outside should be publicly named and shamed, they are a disgrace but will soon move on to the next ‘cause’. I’d hate to think how I’d behave toward them if they were blocking my access to hospital with a sick child.

Without going into the details of the case, which I doubt anyone on here has any real knowledge of, the thing that troubles me about this case and the previous one of its type at Great Ormond St, is the demonization of the hospital and the doctors treating/caring for him - professionals doing their job, presumably to the best of their ability, honestly and looking to do the best for the children in their case, but whose professionalism means they can't wage the sort of publicity campaign the parents can.

I can't imagine it does anything to attract potential recruits to a career in medicine, or in particular for one within the NHS, which means we're all the poorer for it - whatever the rights or wrongs. With the increased ability to keep people alive without them necessarily having their condition healed or improved, it strikes me as an increasingly difficult hot potato.

Stproc wrote:It’s very sad about Alfie, no one should have to go through that.
However the rent a mob idiots outside should be publicly named and shamed, they are a disgrace but will soon move on to the next ‘cause’. I’d hate to think how I’d behave toward them if they were blocking my access to hospital with a sick child.

Blood would be spilt and it wouldn't be mine...

They're typical Jeremy Kyle combatants, obese, tattooed
and thick as pig sh!t. Nowt else to do.

cricketfieldclarets wrote:Is there any subject this forum doesnt have experts on? As bad as the mob some on here.

No but I'd trust the professional opinion of doctors and judges over what I'd read on facebook and heard from some "holy man".

What? So we trust experts now?

Seriously mixed messages on different threads on this board these days

Lancasterclaret wrote:What? So we trust experts now?

Seriously mixed messages on different threads on this board these days

Tut, tut. You're better than that Lancaster.

probably not to be fair Caballo!

Anyway, great blog from a paediatrician on all this. Unlikely that anyone who is actually there will read it, but its essential reading for those who think that this kind of protest is justified in any way.

https://www.facebook.com/DrRaviJ/?hc_re ... tY&fref=nf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Spot on Claretspice and sadly what happens all too often is that death not life is prolonged.
Most healthcare workers get up in the morning with the aim of trying to help people and relieve
suffering when they can't and even then they are helping.
Their tasks are hampered by the few bad ones in the mix eg Harold (and the Shipman enquiry), Alder Hay PM scandals and of course the Daily Mail and all the red tape that has followed.

Lancasterclaret wrote:probably not to be fair Caballo!

Anyway, great blog from a paediatrician on all this. Unlikely that anyone who is actually there will read it, but its essential reading for those who think that this kind of protest is justified in any way.

https://www.facebook.com/DrRaviJ/?hc_re ... tY&fref=nf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Really sad and poignant post by that Doctor, but even on there people are behaving like dicks.

tybfc wrote:Possibly his life?

Who cares who is paying for it?

And I have seen an Italian Doctor looking at his results.

Why not just abort every child that seems abnormal?

He is a human being with a chance to live and you are behind a keyboard killing him.

Be proud.

I appreciate this is a sensitive subject for you but this child is being used. The proceedings are bing funded by a pro life Christian law group, so it is important.

This boy isn’t abnormal a large part of his brain hasn’t developed, its dead tissue that isn’t going to grow back. He does not have a chance to live and you are sitting behind a keyboard encouraging the prolonging of his torturous existence to fit your beliefs.

One of my friends is a doctor at Alder Hey. He was saying to me last week that he can't get into work without his car getting crowded by protesters and getting verbally abused.

aggi wrote:One of my friends is a doctor at Alder Hey. He was saying to me last week that he can't get into work without his car getting crowded by protesters and getting verbally abused.

That's completely unacceptable. For all these fckwits know, your doctor friend could have been part of Alfie's team, caring for him.

The Old Bill need to firm up a bit with these idiots.

I have worked on adult intensive care and I have seen this type of situation first hand.

I have seen doctors pressured into continuing treatment which then results in a traumatic and undignified end.

Removing treatment isn’t the same as killing him.

You can essentially ventilate and administer noradrenaline to a corpse and keep it going.

I don’t know the full ins and out of the case but I know for a fact that doctors would rather not make this decision. It would be easier to keep him going. But that wouldn’t be the right thing to do

Quantity of life over quality of life. That is what this seems to boil down to. And as for the comment above about experts on every subject on here, I believe Inchy is a nurse and has a far more in depth knowledge of what is happening than most others on this board. Possibly with the exception of Keighley who I believe is/was a GP.

It is a terribly sad situation for all concerned, which ultimately is going to end with the death of the child. No amount of legal wrangling, praying to sky fairies of whatever denomination, and rent a mob scousers protesting outside the hospital is going to alter that.

In 1986/87 I worked for a company that installed 3 new UCV operating theatres at Alder Hey hospital I was commissioning engineer but oversaw the sub contractors during the installation so I did spend a lot of time on site and over that time met and got to know a great number of staff. The plantroom was on the roof of a single storey building and I would have to walk past a huge bay window of a victorian building, this was the ward for terminally sick children and often 2 little lads would be at the window waving and attracting your attention I used to have my 'doodle' wire in my hand, a piece of yellow/black earth wire I would twist and curl into a spring this seemed to fascinate the lads and next time I was inside I made 2 springs and handed them to a nurse to give to the lads next day they were at the the window with their wire giggling and waving but not every day they didn't always have good day's. As I said I met and got to know staff and their partners, these people are very special people both staff and partners have regular counselling sessions living day to day with the heartbreak that comes with caring for these sick kids would be for some people impossible but they do it. I had a few nights out with a couple of groups and talked football with husbands and got a bit of an insight into their lives their very
special lives not only do they care so wonderfully for children there is a huge amount of care for parents there is a parents quarter at the hospital and you can feel the love they all have for each other and at the main entrance there was a massive thermometer showing the charity money raised and still needed to fund the hospital I found that disgusting Alder Hey and similar places should be funded to the hilt. When I finally finished at the hospital the 2 lads were no longer with us not in body anyway I still think about them and whenever I think I'm a having a bad time or lifes a bitch I realise it's nothing I can't handle compared to the mum's and dads's I met, it changes you.

Top, top post LordBob

This case is being funded by Christian Concern - fundamentalists who “have a passion to see the U.K. return to the Christian faith” and “infuse a biblical worldview into every aspect of society”. Anti Islam, anti abortion, anti embryonic research, anti assisted suicide, transphobic, etc / the sort of people you would cross the road to avoid

What a sad circus this has become....now the father had served summons against three of the Doctors for 'conspiracy to murder'.....who the heck is advising this guy....oh yeah, not a lawyer, some guy from a Pro-life Christian group....

ElectroClaret wrote:They're typical Jeremy Kyle combatants, obese, tattooed
and thick as pig sh!t. Nowt else to do.

Whilst I wouldn't normally judge people without knowing them, unfortunately that seems to be very much the case here from the pictures and reports. Not doing a tragic situation any favours at all.

Seems they have lost their next appeal to take him to Italy.....

The father seems to be a bit of a publicity junkie and the cost of legal fees and extended medical help would be better spent on research and treating children.
No winners in this apart from as always the legal profession.

I think that Alfie's mother has come out of this sad, sad story with such dignity for such a young mother who must be going to hell and back every day.

God bless the three of them.

This Twitter thread does a perfect example of providing facts for this very sad case, for anyone interested.

It's very unfortunate to hear the summons regarding conspiracy to murder when they are administering end of life care to a child who has no clear path of recovery.

https://twitter.com/juniordrblog/status ... 55424?s=21" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It was on radio 5 this afternoon that the mother and father have now got separate legal
representation. They were trying to figure out why this should be.

The mother has come through this with dignity, but alas the father not so much imo,
for what it's worth.

Funkydrummer wrote:It was on radio 5 this afternoon that the mother and father have now got separate legal
representation. They were trying to figure out why this should be.

The mother has come through this with dignity, but alas the father not so much imo,
for what it's worth.

Perhaps agree over the events of the past 24 hours but you have to just sit back and put yourself in their shoes.

They are no more than kids themselves and are trying to do what they think is right for their baby.

Whether we agree or disagree it must be doing and probably will tear their family apart.

It is just so horrible for all three of them.

I don't agree with every action Alfie's dad as taken in this matter.

But can we just remember his son is lying in a hospital struggling for oxygen in probably is last few hours of life. Alfie's parents are in a position where no parent would ever want to be and lets just remember too that they are young parents that have been devastated by their beautiful little boys illness.

Alfie's father rightly or wrongly refuses to give up, he's fighting to the end for what he believes is in Alfie's best interests, he could be wrong, but I for one admire his fight. Alfie should be proud of his parents. No one truly knows how they would react in that situation unless they have been there themselves.

This is not the time to criticise.

I've probably posted too much on this but anyway.

Why do the local courts, the court in Manchester, The Supreme Court, the court of appeal and the European court of Human Rights have the right to stop parents taking their child on a two hour flight in a last try to save or prolong his life?

He seems clearly in no pain.

If he dies as the medics here says he is going to do in the next few days then so be it but surely the parents should be granted the last decision of what happens and where?

They should let them take him to Rome if that is what the family want and Alfie is not in pain at all.

tybfc wrote:I've probably posted too much on this but anyway.

Why do the local courts, the court in Manchester, The Supreme Court, the court of appeal and the European court of Human Rights have the right to stop parents taking their child on a two hour flight in a last try to save or prolong his life?

He seems clearly in no pain.

If he dies as the medics here says he is going to do in the next few days then so be it but surely the parents should be granted the last decision of what happens and where?

They should let them take him to Rome if that is what the family want and Alfie is not in pain at all.

I think it's the children's act which places the state in charge of cases like this, so doctors have the final say, the parents are challenging this, so it ends up in the courts. Very rare that a judge, not medically trained would go against a panel of medical experts.