Alfie Evans

[IcySlippy]

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/alfie-evans-parents-plead-sons-14231597

Anyone following this?

redglitter yes I agree about his Mum. I wonder how she is and hope she has good support. I don't think she would feel able to say stop even if she wanted. She may be worried she will vet the backlash. Horrid situation for all

This is such a desperately sad situation and I really feel for the parents, who aren't much older than my DD. They need to realise that letting Alfie go doesn't mean that they don't love him but in fact it means just the opposite. I agree with PP that it may be that Tom can't lose face by "backing down" now.

By letting him go I mean letting him die, not what the "army" mean.

Birds what are you on about? Did you not hear the statement Tom himself made? Accusing alder hay of all sorts of disgusting stuff?

Yes I thought he was accusing them of leaving mouldy tubes/lines in etc?

The father isn't very consistent, he's more recently asked people to stop having a go at the hospital.

Has anyone seen the recent post on the aa page on fb by another parent who's child
Is in Alder Hey?

I dread to think what's going to happen in this situation, I can't think of anything more worse than losing a child, I do feel so sorry for the whole family and just hope they can find some peace.

MorningCuppa do you mean the alder hey page? What does it say as can't find it?

No sorry, it's the Alfie Evans page a lady with a son called Jacob.

Oh god that doesn't sound good. The thing is, all hospitals have problems if you look hard enough. This is bad (if exactly as the woman describes) but it needs to be investigated separately to the AE case.

I think the army are desperately trying now to dig up whatever they can find to support their cause, but that does not take away from the fact that Alfie's situation has been through the court and it's been decided that his overall care plan is the right one for him. Individual clinicians and their conduct needs to be looked at, but separately if that makes sense.

During the Charlie Gard case, someone on Mumsnet mentioned another court case of parents who fought to keep their child on life support and succeeded, but later divorced and neither wanted to care for the child...does anyone know the case? I wanted to read about it but can't remember the names or find it on Google.

Course it doesn't but you can't always say that these things are not happening and people are making these allegations up, as well as, we don't know if the allegations are true, they do need to be investigated and I hope anyone who has suffered any kind of neglect from hospital staff takes it further so it is dealt with.
I'm sure if there is/was any staff that are not caring out the appropriate care properly they will be dealt with.
I'm also sure that there are a majority of kind, well trained and lovely staff who go above and beyond caring for these children.

Charlotte Wyatt Baldricks.

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3655964/Little-sick-Charlotte-wins-her-right-to-life-but-now-finds-herself-without-a-home.html

Baldrick I remember that case yes, child ended up in foster care.

That is awful the reporting of the other child in AH, no-one will want to nurse in these high profile cases or hospitals if this kind of social media slating becomes the norm which is tragic.

Cocoa yes I agree but it's hard because sometimes I guess people want to speak out, I can see a lot more of this coming there way when they finally have to turn off Alfie's Ventilator unfortunately.

It really undermines the miraculous job many of these doctors, nurses etc do. I'm sure there are many people who wouldn't be here today because of some of these staff.

Stitch thank you for the link, devastatingly sad.

Course it doesn't but you can't always say that these things are not happening and people are making these allegations up, as well as, we don't know if the allegations are true, they do need to be investigated and I hope anyone who has suffered any kind of neglect from hospital staff takes it further so it is dealt with.

I do agree Morning, one case of neglect is one case too many and should not be acceptable on any level. Hopefully that mum will keep pushing in her complaints.

it is interesting that the 'army' did not get behind and support the parents of baby Isaiah Haastrop.
This was another case with a severely damaged baby with no chance of improvement or ability to come of artificial ventilation . The parents , well the father , was very publicly focal in his fight and his accusations that Kings Hospital were trying to murder his baby etc....he went through the courts and took it to the European Court of appeal.
They ruled against the parents and i think the baby was going to made a ward of court if parents pursued it any further. Kings did take the baby of ventilation and he passed away peacefully shortly afterwards.

Interestingly the parents are BME and more middle class ( father was a paralegal ) than either Gards or TE, and while the case got a lot of publicity not sure the parents stirred it up on social media.
I do wonder if they were just not attractive to the type who join these types of perceived social crusades...some where on another thread it was commented that the people who join these 'armies' are expressing their own dissatisfaction/discontent with their own lives which they blame on ' the establishment' and are looking for something to hang this on perhaps without realising this.
The parents of baby Isaiah did not fit this stereotype and therefore did not connect or strike a chord with the army.

I think when it comes to things like this there is far to many unknowns. Doctors can only know so much. Specialists can only know so much. There's still an awful lot we don't know about genetics, the human body and why things turn out as they do. My brother has an extremely rare brain disorder which my parents were told he wouldn't survive birth he did. They were then told he would be in a vegatitve state he isn't he eats talks interacts ECT he doesn't walk has he has cerebral palsy. The doctors when my brother was little told my parents they were running test as he survived and he will probably have a life expectancy they did they test and found he didn't. He's now 33 and happy with his life he does what he wants to do. The thing we learnt though out this is that doctors and specialist have a limited knowledge of the vast amount of issues that humans have. It's impossible for anyone to know everything and science is still trying to work most of it out.

@stitchglitched

I think the Charlotte Wyatt case shows how unfounded the attacks on the judiciary in this case and Charlie Card's case have been. Despite what has been claimed, the courts are independent and they don't just rubber-stamp the decision made by the hospital. They can - and have in the past - found in favour of continuing treatment.

(My grammar went to pieces there, but you know what I mean)

Yes, I'd notice that Isaiah Haastrup's case attracted comparatively little attention. I suspect that race is part of it, and also class and the parents' difference use of the media. Also, I think Isaiah's parents were perhaps more overtly religious in their public statements? The general public these days is perhaps more likely to respond to arguments that the child is a fighter who deserves a chance, than arguments that overtly mention God's will. Ironically, I've seen comments on the DM and social media to the effect that "they wouldn't be treating Alfie like this if he was black", from idiots who obviously didn't even notice Isaiah's case earlier in the year.

In any case, my heart goes out to all these children and their families. From the experience of my extended family, I know that this isn't something that families ever get over. I hope the families get the support and counselling they need.

what i also find puzzling is why do these families and their online FB supporting armies believe that a hospital would want to kill a child ?
I refer to the argument made both with Alfie and Charlie Gard that these babies are actually fine and the staff are drugging them etc to make it look like they are severely impaired ...i wonder what the army says when someone asks ' why do you think the hospital is doing that ?'