By David William Jedell, May 3, 2018

Alfie’s Parents 
Alfie was born healthy and on time. We were so happy to have him with us going home, our beautiful boy. He grew and fed well, but was exceptionally sleepy and didn’t meet milestones. After a couple of weeks we noticed Alfie wasn’t doing things he should be, like lifting his head up, grabbing his dummy, eating his hands, etc. We also noticed he was doing a jerking movement with his hands, arms and legs, and his eyes would roll up. Alfie often had his hands clenched into a fist. We took him to doctors three times, who said he was lazy and a late developer.

Months went by and Alfie went backward instead of forwards. He started making more jerking movements and wasn’t himself at all. Finally Alfie became agitated, crying inconsolably. Then Alfie got a chest infection and landed in the hospital. The infection led him to have a myoclonic jerking spasm, and Alfie struggled to breathe. This is when he was first put on life support, the worst nights of our lives. They told us in January 2016 that Alfie wasn’t going to make it, so we had him christened. We thought we were going to lose our son and our hearts were desperate.

But Alfie had other ideas, he managed to beat the infection and start breathing on his own again. He was moving and trying to open his eyes. Unfortunately, Alfie caught another infection and went back on the ventilator.

Time and time again, despite not being diagnosed or treated for any suspected underlying disease, his seizures being somewhat controlled by a heavy cocktail of sedating drugs, Alfie has come back over and over from every infection and challenge. The hospital claims that Alfie is “insensate” and unaware of any stimulus or irritation, which is proven wrong in hundreds of videos, against the odds of a heavy cocktail of anti-seizure drugs with sedative effect. Daily, Alfie moves, stretches, yawns, responding to tickling and noise and cuddling.

And yet even with all this, with loving parents (we are only 20 years old) who persevere through great strain and leave no stone unturned for Alfie, with support around the world, Alder Hey wants to turn his life support off. We have found another European hospital willing to help Alfie move forward, get a tracheostomy and PEG tube and get off heavy sedation, and to try to diagnose and treat him. We’ve been told several times by outside doctors that Alfie can even eventually be able to go home with a tracheostomy and direct stomach tube (PEG).

Yet Alder Hey keeps moving the goalposts. They have gone from telling us they would allow transfer if a hospital was found, and putting us through a long process of proving our option was viable, to admitting they would not allow any such transfer. The pressure by the doctors to end Alfie’s life has been unrelenting. Now they have resorted to legal force, to remove parental rights and end Alfie’s life, going to court behind our backs when we were still willing to go through mediation to find a positive solution.[1]

Videoes of Alfie

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOh-n319lBYdl0YLMzstzcED5hKkCdlnUzK7T3mIrc4RNzqmS1xER6APrtuIG5nkQ?key=cE1sZXU3dTluamg4cTRKdF9JR2pKVWx2RUFMTkxB

https://www.facebook.com/Antioligarch/videos/10160234820950363/

Baby Alfie Evans taken off ventilator for ninety hours (Fox News with Dr. Marc Siegel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v13Ykq-Pqmw
In full: Alfie Evans’ father pleads to allow his sick son to be taken to Italy | ITV News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6rqMLMytYw

Death Sentence by Alder Hey Hospital and The Supreme Court of the UK 
Life support was withdrawn, Alfie Evans’ father said his son was still supporting his own life more than an hour after treatment was stopped, but that he was in need of oxygen. Earlier in the evening, Mr Justice Hayden said doctors at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool could stop providing life support.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmWfWHHjmTc

Prominent Pediatrician Says Alfie Not Dying and Should Be Released
As the parents of Alfie Evans await a meeting today with hospital staff to find out if they would be able to bring him home, a prominent doctor who has studied Alfie says he is not dying and is not brain-dead and says the hospital needs to quit holding him as if he were in a prison.
Alfie supposedly has a degenerative neurological condition but that diagnosis is being challenged now that Alfie is breathing on his own without life support.

Alfie Evans’ parents met with staff from Alder Hey Children’s Hospital to request permission to take Alfie home. His father Tom Evans says he would not try to take Alfie to Italy if allowed to bring Alfie home, but that he would have doctors and support staff help Alfie from their home. Alfie has survived for a third day after hospital doctors removed his life support without their permission.

Dr Izabela Pałgan, a paediatrician and children’s oncologist from Bydgoszcz in Poland, claims to have diagnosed the 23-month-old toddler on his parent’s request.
She said: “The doctors at the hospital in Liverpool have approached the High Court for permission to unplug the child from his life support machinery, claiming it will be in his best interests.
“But the child is not a dying child. On the Paediatric Glasgow Coma Scale the child ranks at about eight to nine points, so this is not a case of brain death.“The child reacts to his father’s voice and periodically opens his eyes. Periodically the boy also clenches his mouth when given a dummy, therefore he shows reactions.“The parents have absolutely stated the child communicates with them when they speak to him – they feel the child somehow feels their emotions and can emotionally connect with them.“Certainly this is not a dying child. In Poland and I think in other European countries as well, children like this are simply taken care of with palliative care or home care.”According to Dr Pałgan, the expert was called in to review Alfie’s case after family supporters sought out medical experts who could give a second opinion on Alfie’s conditions.

Alfie’s father Tom Evans agrees his son has been misdiagnosed. Speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC, Alfie’s father Tom said: “For the third day now, there’s been not one single problem with him. The nurses come in and said ‘wow.’”

“Today, we’re going to have a meeting with the doctors at Alder Hey and we’ll now start asking to go home. Alfie doesn’t need intensive care anymore.”
In the new interview, Evans said, “Alfie does not need intensive care – Alfie is lying on the bed with one litre of oxygen going to his lungs and the rest is him. Some people say it’s a miracle – it’s not a miracle its a misdiagnosis.”

The decision denying travel to Italy came despite doctors representing Alder Hey Children’s Hospital misleading the court with claims it never said Alfie would die soon after it removed his life support without his parents’ permission. And officials at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital kicked out two paramedics from the air ambulance and made them leave the premises after they were talking with Alfie’s parents. This is the latest example of the hospital’s lack of care and concern for the 23-month old boy who is dealing with a rare neurological condition.

Evans indicated that Alfie is not in any pain and hardly taking any drugs — and he disputed the claim that Alfie should not be able to travel to Italy because of potential seizures, saying that Alfie has not having any seizures and is not on any anti-seizure medication because there was no problem at this time.

Previously, Evans indicated he was very concerned about Alfie’s lack of food — saying then that it has been almost 24 hours since he has had anything to eat and he is just receiving water and fluids. He was worried that hospital staff are attempting to starve Alfie to death in an attempt to prove their contention that Alfie was going to die very quickly after his removal from life support. Eventually, Alfie received food.
After a decision by Italy, Alfie was granted Italian citizenship which qualified him for being able to leave the country, but courts ruled otherwise.

A British doctors group, The Medical Ethics Alliance, expressed its horror over the treatment of Alfie Evans that it called a “medical tyranny.”

And Italy’s Healthcare Chief has slammed the decisions by UK courts to treat Alfie the way that they have. The President of the Italian National Institute of Health lambasted the UK High Court’s decision yesterday on Alfie Evans’ that resulted it the children’s hospital being allowed to remove life support over Alfie’s parents’ objections.
Pope Francis has repeatedly spoken on Alfie’s behalf and urged that Alfie’s parents be allowed to bring him to Italy.[4]

Alfie Evans Died April 28, 2018

Whistleblower Against Alder Hey Hospital
Dr. Edwin Jesudason, an associate professor and award-winning paediatric surgeon, the authorities turned a blind eye after he and a colleague called for a review of ‘unnecessary’ fatalities among children who had undergone surgery at the hospital.
He not only claims that Alder Hey tried to stop him making his concerns public, but also now fears he has been blacklisted as a troublemaking whistleblower — and that he will never work again for the NHS.[5]

The Liverpool Care Pathway in 2012 
Norman Lamb, the care minister, asked officials at the Department of Health to look into how and why financial rewards are being linked to targets for the use of the Liverpool Care Pathway.

A nurse gave Alfie Evans four unidentified drugs just two hours before his death
To silence the press, the hospital promised Tom Evans more oxygen and more vital support. Two hours before dying the oxygen saturation was about 98 and Alfie’s beats were about 160, so much so that Thomas was convinced that they would let him go home soon (as the hospital administration told him on Friday afternoon) . Before dying, while Tom had gone out for a moment, leaving Kate half-awake and another family member in the room, a nurse entered and explained that he would give the baby four drugs (no one knows what) to treat him.After about 30 minutes the saturation dropped to 15. Two hours later Alfie was dead. The scientific director of the Bambin Gesù Hospital, Bruno Dalla Dallapiccola, is quoted as saying he thinks the lack of food and water during the first day after Alfie’s life support was removed contributed to his death as well as the lack of proper oxygen. A report also indicates that Alfie immediately contracted “a lung infection” after life support was removed and that Alfie’s father requested but was denied antibiotics to combat that. It also alleges that the breathing tubes were yanked in a way that caused damage or stress to Alfie’s body.After removing his life support without permission, officials at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital waited 28 hours before finally feeding the 23-month old boy.[7]

Theresa May
British prime minister Theresa May defended the hospital. She argued that medical experts ought to be the ones to make decisions in such cases as opposed to parents and family.[8]

Alfie’ Law
A member of the European Parliament wants the case of Alfie Evans to be the last in which parents’ wishes for their child’s medical care are smacked down by the state.“Alfie’s Law,” introduced by Steven Woolfe, a member of the European Union’s legislative body for North West England, would provide parents of children with terminal diseases more say in their child’s care and treatment instead of leaving those decisions up to hospitals and courts.[9] 

Pope Francis 
Pope Francis, who had publicly supported Evans and James’ campaign, wrote a condolence that was posted on Twitter Saturday. “I am deeply moved by the death of little Alfie,” Francis said. “Today I pray especially for his parents, as God the Father receives him in his tender embrace.”[10] 

Sixteen Democratic U.S. Senators Are Questioned on Socialized Healthcare After Alfie Evans and Go Completely Silent
The evils of socialized medicine were on full display during the few days the world watched Alfie Evans suffer to death at the hands of the British government’s National Healthcare System (NHS). After his death, the Daily Signal decided to get the comments of the 15 Democratic senators currently co-sponsoring the “Medicare for All Act of 2017,” spearheaded by Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). According to the Daily Signal, what they got in return was an eerie silence from the Democrats who apparently decided to go dark after the world watched their beloved system of choice fail so spectacularly. 
The Daily Signal emailed the Senate offices of Sanders and co-sponsors Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.In emails sent to the 16 senators Monday and Tuesday, The Daily Signal noted that they have advocated government-run health care and asked what they thought of the Alfie Evans case and how a similar case should be handled in the United States. None had responded as of publication deadline Tuesday evening.[11]

References
[1] Price, Kayleigh, We demand Alder Hey to release Alfie Evans to a hospital of his parents’ choice, Cange.org https://www.change.org/p/we-demand-alder-hey-to-release-alfie-evans-to-a-hospital-of-his-parents-choice
[2] South China Morning Post, UK toddler Alfie Evans is removed from life support, after courts reject parents’ bid for more treatment, 
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2143010/european-rights-court-rejects-application-parents-terminally-ill
[3] Withers, Paul, Furious Italy…, Express (April 25, 2018) https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/951032/alfie-evans-latest-news-italy-hospital-vatican
[4] Ertelt, Steven, Top Pediatrician Says “Alfie is NOT Dying and Not Brain Dead.” Quit Holding Him in Hospital “Prison”, (April 26, 2018) http://www.lifenews.com/2018/04/26/top-pediatrician-says-alfie-is-not-dying-and-not-brain-dead-quit-holding-him-in-hospital-prison/
[5] Bird, Steve, This brilliant surgeon can’t find work in the NHS. Is it because he blew the whistle on child deaths at a leading hospital? March 14, 2013 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2293567/This-brilliant-surgeon-work-NHS-Is-blew-whistle-child-deaths-leading-hospital.html
[6] Bingham, John, Liverpool Care Pathway: minister orders report into cash rewards, The Telegraph (November 5, 2012) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9654324/Liverpool-Care-Pathway-minister-orders-report-into-cash-rewards.html
[7] Ertelt, Steven, Report Says Nurse Gave Alfie Evans Four Unidentified Drugs. Two Hours Later He Died, LifeNews.com (May 1, 2018) http://www.lifenews.com/2018/05/01/report-says-nurse-gave-alfie-evans-four-unidentified-drugs-two-hours-later-he-died/#.Wui__G65Dk0.twitter
[8] Ertelt, Steven, British Prime Minister Defends Hospital That Ended Alfie Evans’ Life, Says “Clinicians Should Decide” Not Parents, LifeNews.com (April 30, 2018) http://www.lifenews.com/2018/04/30/british-prime-minister-defends-hospital-that-ended-alfie-evans-life-says-clinicians-should-decide-not-parents/
[9] McArdle, Mairead, European Parliament Member Introduces ‘Alfie’s Law, (April 26, 2018) National Review

Copyright © 2018 by David William Jedell
Email: d.w.jedell@gmail.com