Alfie survival gives parents new hope
THE first statue of a woman in Parliament Square has been unveiled at a ceremony in Westminster.
Suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett has been immortalised in bronze and now stands 8ft 4in just outside Parliament.
Hers is the only female statue, standing alongside 11 THE parents of a 23-month-old boy who has been at the centre of a life-support treatment battle are to again ask a High Court judge to let the youngster travel to an Italian hospital, a campaign group helping the couple says.
Mr Justice Hayden was scheduled to oversee another hearing in Alfie Evans’ case, in the Family Division of the High Court in Manchester, yesterday afternoon.
A spokeswoman for the Christian Legal Centre, which is assisting Alfie’s parents Tom Evans and Kate James, said the judge would be asked to allow medical experts in Italy to examine Alfie.
She said medics at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool had stopped providing “ventilation support” to Alfie shortly after 9pm on Monday.
But she said Alfie continued to breathe independently.
“Alfie has survived much longer than the doctors predicted, lending support to the request from Alfie’s parents for Alfie to be seen by medical experts in Italy,” she said.
“An air ambulance is now waiting outside Alder Hey Hospital ready to take Alfie to hospital in Italy.” She said a barrister representing Alfie’s parents, who are both in their 20s and from Liverpool, would argue that it could not be in Alfie’s best interests to be “left to die in Alder Hey”.
The spokeswoman added: “He will argue that Alfie should be allowed to travel to Italy where doctors are ready to care for him.”
Alfie’s parents have lost two rounds of court fights.
Mr Evans said it became obvious he was breathing “within a few minutes” of lifesupport being withdrawn and said doctors were “gobsmacked” although doctors reintervened after he asked them to help.
He said: “I sat down with the doctor, it was a lengthy talk for about 40 minutes and he ended up saying that I’m right, and I was right, I’ve always been right. They say Alfie’s suffering. Well look at him now. He’s not even on a ventilator and he’s not suffering.”
Judges have heard that Alfie, born on May 9 2016, is in a “semi-vegetative state” and has a degenerative neurological condition not definitively diagnosed.
Specialists say his brain has been “eroded”. In February, Mr Justice Hayden had ruled that doctors at Alder Hey could stop treating Alfie against the wishes of his parents following hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London and Liverpool.
Specialists at Alder Hey said life-support treatment should stop and Mr Justice Hayden said he accepted medical evidence which showed that further treatment was futile. He said flying Alfie to a foreign hospital would be wrong and pointless.
Court of Appeal judges upheld his decisions. Supreme Court justices and European Court of Human Rights judges refused to intervene.
The couple then argued Alfie was being wrongly “detained” at Alder Hey but Mr Justice Hayden dismissed that application and appeal judges upheld his decision.