Thread: Alfie Evans, UK toddler at center of legal battle, dies

Alfie Evans, UK toddler at center of legal battle, dies

By Bradford Betz | Fox News
2 hours ago

Alfie Evans, a terminally ill British toddler whose case drew attention from Pope Francis and others around the world, has died, his parents announced Saturday morning.

Parents Kate James, 20, and Tom Evans, 21, wrote on Facebook that they were “absolutely heartbroken” that they had lost their son.

Alfie was born in May 2016. Later that year he suffered a series of seizures and was admitted to a hospital in Liverpool where he has been since, BBC reported.

Alfie developed an incurable degenerative brain condition and was at the center of a legal battle over his treatment.

Medics struggled to precisely identify Alfie's condition.

Doctors said further treatment was futile and recommended that Alfie be allowed to die, but his parents -- backed by the pope and Christian groups -- fought for months to take him to a hospital in Italy so he could be kept on life support.

The hospital withdrew Alfie's life support Monday after a series of court rulings sided with doctors who said continuing Alfie's treatment was "not in Alfie's best interests."

Justice Anthony Hayden, a U.K. judge, said the ruling represented "the final chapter in the life of this extraordinary boy."

Under British law, courts often intervene when parents and doctors disagree over the treatment of a child, who's rights often take precedent over the parent's right to decide what's best.

News of Alfie's death has brought an outpouring of messages from people sending their condolences.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2018/0...ttle-dies.html

This baby should have been transferred to a different hospital in another city or country for second opinions months ago. When you can't diagnose, then you can't treat. When you can't treat because you can't diagnose, you commit malpractice by providing the wrong treatment either worsening the condition, causing permanent damage or death. The hospital probably knows what it did wrong, it operated on an inaccurate diagnosis, treated for that, and caused brain damage. Another hospital would have discovered that and the truth would have come out. It's also quite possible that there was no brain damage, and he was in a coma from medication to stop the seizures, there are ways to reverse that. This baby was denied that second opinion, denied the possibility of a correct diagnosis as well as a treatment for his actual situation, and instead held captive with incompetents who said enough already and decided to kill him by denying him food and water that anyone even a very healthy person needs to survive. You will die in 3 to 4 days without water.

This goes on every day in American hospitals to cover up malpractice and incompetence, especially with the elderly.

And this is a "civilized country"! I generally don't want to pay attention to what other countries are doing because we have so much wrong in our own country. We cannot be dictators to the world, imposing our laws on them. If competition is the answer, this should be treated like the Holocaust. Britain should be scorned repeatedly.

In my opinion, the doctors who said moving the child to Italy might kill him, when they had diagnosed that he would die in their care, should be prosecuted for manslaughter. Likewise the police chief who put up a guard around the hospital to enforce this execution.

Since this was done under accepted British Law, the U.N. should prosecute it as a crime against humanity. However, I don't want the U.N. interfering in our country, so how can I advocate such interference in another country?

I could support the British government allowing the child to die because they didn't want to throw money down the drain. But to deny the parents the right to, with non-government money, seek help from another medical source, is criminal and should be treated as such.