Alfie shows we still have so much to learn

THERE can be no winners in the heartbreaking case of infant Alfie Evans. I agree with the court’s decision that he be allowed to die, but also completely understand how, with their son hanging on to life by a gossamer thread, his parents have raged against the dying of the light.

Utterly powerless to do anything about their son’s condition, their fury at the unfairness of it all has been directed towards the doctors. But while that, too, is understandable psychologically, the response from some members of the public — Alfie’s Army — who have been holding protests outside the hospital, is not.

Can they really think this achieves anything, or that it’s fair on the staff and other patients at the hospital? There have even been death threats towards the judge. This kind of behaviour is absolutely abhorrent. No one wants to see a child die, but equally the medical professionals know the limits of medicine and when it starts to do more harm than good.

The protesters’ actions made me wonder how they could have so badly misunderstood those limits.

Their hope was misplaced, but also strangely touching, as it showed an unwavering belief that medicine has the answers.

The blame for this lies somewhere in the failed promises of medicine. The latter half of the last century is often referred to as the Golden Age of medicine because, within a few short decades, vast numbers of diseases that had previously been fatal were suddenly curable — or at least made bearable.

As a result, we’ve come to believe that medicine has the answer for every ill. Indeed, the protesters seemed incredulous that the doctors and nurses couldn’t do something.

But sometimes medicine doesn’t have the answer: it’s not omnipotent and we’re still relatively ignorant when it comes to many diseases. The condition affecting Alfie has baffled doctors: it doesn’t even have a name yet, let alone a treatment.

Worst of all, there’s also the cruel reality that while medicine can often keep someone alive, it can’t always alleviate their suffering. A wily old professor of medicine who taught me used to say: ‘If you’re not careful, trying to help can cause just as much misery for your patient as not helping them at all.’

This is the tragedy of Alfie’s case: medicine failed him. Sadly — and more often than people realise — it does not have the answers.