‘My gladiator lay down shield’: British legal battle toddler dies
london — Alfie Evans, the 23-month-old British toddler whose grave illness drew international attention, died early on Saturday, his family said.
Alfie had a rare, degenerative disease and had been in a semi-vegetative state for more than a year.
After a series of court cases, doctors at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool removed his life support on Monday, against his parents wishes.
He confounded expectations by continuing to breathe unaided for days, but died in the early hours of Saturday, his parents said.
“My gladiator lay down his shield and gained his wings at 02:30 absolutely heartbroken,” the boy’s father Tom Evans wrote on Facebook.
“Our baby boy grew his wings tonight ... Thank you everyone for all your support,” his mother Kate James wrote.
Medical experts in Britain had agreed that more treatment for Alfie would be futile, but his parents wanted to take him to Rome, where the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu hospital had offered to care for him.
A British court rejected an appeal by the parents on Wednesday to take their son to Italy.
The case has provoked strong feelings over whether judges, doctors or parents have the right to decide on a child’s life. Alfie’s parents have been backed by Pope Francis and Poland’s President Andrzej Duda.
Alder Hey Children’s hospital, where the 23-month-old was being treated, expressed their condolences.
“All of us feel deeply for Alfie, Kate, Tom and his whole family and our thoughts are with them. “This has been a devastating journey for them,” the hospital said.
Supporters began to leave floral tributes outside the hospital and a post on the “Alfie’s Army” Facebook page, which has 801,000 members, said balloons would be released from a park near the facility later on Saturday.
Evans was born on May 9, 2016 and was first taken to hospital in December of that year after suffering seizures.
His condition worsened and, a year later, in December 2017, the hospital recommended withdrawing life support. The parents disagreed and the two sides went to court.
At a hearing in February the hospital’s lawyers argued that Evans had suffered “catastrophic degradation of his brain tissue” and said Italian doctors who visited the child were agreed on the “futility” of trying to find a cure.
Helen Cross, an expert in child epilepsy at another children’s hospital in London, told the hearing that scans showed over 70 per cent of the baby’s brain fibre had been lost and said there was “no prospect of recovery”.
Pope Francis intervened several times in a case that touched hearts around the world and prompted vigils in Italy and Poland.
Earlier this week the pontiff wrote on Twitter that he hoped the parents’ “desire to seek new forms of treatment may be granted”.
“The only master of life, from the beginning to its natural end, is God, and our duty is to do everything to protect life,” he said.
Thomas Evans had also met with the pope in the Vatican last week and asked him to “save our son”.
Italy granted citizenship to the toddler on Monday in the hope of facilitating his transfer to the Bambino Gesu (Baby Jesus) paediatric hospital in Rome. —