Tag Archives: alfie evans

I have nothing but sympathy for Alfie Evans’ parents. For the last 18 months, they have been going through the worst kind of trauma. Before Alfie was born, they would have had ideas of the sorts of things they would have done as a family, none of which have come to pass. None of them ever had any hope of coming to pass.

It’s even more difficult when nobody can actually tell you what is wrong. Whatever happened to Alfie’s brain is unique. It doesn’t have a name. The doctors couldn’t say “He has this disease and in all these other cases of that disease this is how it’s happened.”

Some friends of mine had a baby who would be 9 this year. He had a very rare condition and he died when he was 14 weeks old. His short life had a huge impact on them and his wider family and he is remembered every day. They will never fully recover from the trauma they went through. They dealt with it with more grace and love than I could ever have found in that situation.

It is completely understandable for any parent in that position to fight as hard as they can for their child. They don’t want to look in any mirrors and think “I wish I had done more.”

In these circumstances, where parents can’t accept what the doctors say about future courses of action, it is right that should be a legal process to decide. Having read the court judgment, I am confident the the doctors were right. Their conclusions were independently reviewed and enough people came to the same, sad, conclusion for the outcome to be credible. It’s the last thing anyone wanted. Doctors don’t want to have to deliver this sort of news. They want to save people. There are times when they can’t and this is one of them.

I found this Twitter thread written by a junior doctor useful in explaining the background:

I am deeply disturbed by #AlderHey and #AlfieEvans case. What this tragic case desperately needs is less opinions and more facts. /thread

— Dr Dominic Pimenta (@juniordrblog) April 24, 2018