Rest In Peace: Toddler Alfie Evans Has Passed Away by Breitbart London 28 Apr 2018
LONDON (AP) – Alfie Evans, the sick British toddler whose parents won support from Pope Francis during a protracted legal battle over his treatment, died early Saturday. He was 23 months old.
Kate James and Tom Evans made the announcement on social media, saying they were “heartbroken.” The death of Alfie, who had a rare degenerative brain condition, came five days after doctors removed life support.
Doctors overseeing Alfie’s care in the city of Liverpool said further treatment was futile and that he should be allowed to die, but his parents fought for months to try to convince judges to allow them to take him to the Vatican’s children’s hospital so he could be kept on life support. The parents’ campaign was backed by the pope and Christian groups, which helped draw international attention to the case.
The hospital withdrew Alfie’s life support Monday after a series of court rulings sided with the doctors and blocked further medical treatment.
“My gladiator lay down his shield and gained his wings at 02:30,” Tom Evans said in Facebook post decorated with a broken heart and crying emojis.
The death came after an easing of tensions between the family and the hospital. Tom Evans, 21, had pledged to work with doctors to give his son “dignity and comfort,” as he called for a truce in the divisive case.
“Our lives have been turned upside down by the intense focus on Alfie and his situation,” Evans said Thursday outside Liverpool’s Alder Hey Hospital, where Alfie has been treated for more than a year.
He thanked the hospital staff “for their dignity and professionalism during what must be an incredibly difficult time for them too.”
It was a strikingly different tone from the one he struck earlier, when he said doctors were wrong about Alfie’s prognosis and threatened to resume his fight in court.
Alfie’s case received much attention outside Britain, especially in Catholic countries. Pope Francis appealed for the wishes of the boy’s parent to be heeded, saying only God can decide who dies. Italy even granted Alfie citizenship and put a military plane on standby to transport him to Rome if the courts allowed it.
Officials in largely Catholic Poland and Italy have implicitly criticized Britain’s courts and state-run National Health Service on the case.
Supporters prayed for the toddler in St. Peter’s Square to show solidarity with his parents, while in Warsaw people placed candles, teddy bears and notes in front of the British embassy.
Emotions have run high over the case, with supporters protesting regularly outside the hospital, at times trying to storm its entrance.
Alder Hey said staff had been subjected to a “barrage of highly abusive and threatening language and behaviour.”
Alfie’s mother, 20-year-old Kate James, posted that she was heartbroken over Alfie’s death but added, “thank you everyone for all your support.”
ZitatLIVERPOOL, May 1, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – UK toddler Alfie Evans allegedly died within hours of receiving four different drugs from a nurse at Alder Hey hospital, Italian media is reporting. The information that Alfie was given four injections has also been obtained by LifeSiteNews from two different sources with connections to the Evans family.
Alfie Evans died in Liverpool’s Alder Hey children’s hospital on Saturday morning at 2:30 AM. According to Italian newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, a nurse entered the child’s cubicle after his father Tom had been called aside and gave him four drugs. A source close to the family told LifeSiteNews that these were injections that were administered to Alfie after Tom had been summoned for an unusual middle-of-the-night meeting with the hospital. The child died two hours later.
It remains unclear why the alleged injections were given. The Evans family did not respond to LifeSiteNews’ request for comment.
Medical advisors to LifeSiteNews said they could not understand why the child would be given four separate drugs. One or two drugs could be explained as an attempt to sedate the child or administer painkillers, if he were in distress. Four, however, seemed to them mysterious. They recommend that an independent toxicology report be performed.
Alder Hey hospital doctors had previously conveyed to the Evans’ family in a legal document how they intended to use a drug cocktail that included Midazolam and Fentanyl as part of Alfie’s “end of life care plan.” Side effects of the drugs included respiratory depression. Tom Evans called it an “execution plan” for his son.
On the night of Monday, April 23, Alfie was suddenly removed from a ventilator and his life-supporting tubes. He had been on the ventilator for 15 months, and was unused to breathing on his own. He also had a lung infection, which would have required antibiotics to heal. Nevertheless, he managed to breathe independently, and continued to do so for more than 100 hours.
Tom Evans argued that the court order leading to Alfie’s extubation did not extend to depriving the child of oxygen and nutrition, and the child was permitted low levels of oxygen and, after 36 hours without nutrition, was fed.
La Nuova Bussola states that Alfie was given more life support in exchange for his father Tom’s promise not to speak any more to the press.
The day prior to Alfie’s death, Tom Evans read to the press outside the hospital what is now being called by many a “hostage letter.” In what appeared to be a forced statement, Tom read out a letter calling all the supporters of Alfie to go home and resume their lives. He thanked the hospital staff for their care of Alfie, even though just hours earlier he had attempted to have them charged with conspiracy to murder his son. He also praised the hospital staff for their dignity and professionalism, even though the day before he said they were treating his son worse than an animal and felt like he was in a jail.
“To silence the press, the hospital promised Thomas more oxygen and more life-support,” Frigerio continued. “Two hours before death, [Alfie’s] oxygen saturation was at around 98, and Alfie’s heartbeat was around 160, so Thomas was convinced that he would be allowed to go home (as the hospital administration had told him on Friday afternoon).”
However, it is alleged that the child’s health declined rapidly after a nurse gave him four injections.
“Before he died, while Tom was away for a moment, leaving Kate [Alfie’s mother] half-asleep and another family member in the room, a nurse entered and explained that she would give the child four drugs (no-one knows which) to treat him,” Frigerio wrote.
She continued: “After about 30 minutes the [oxygen] saturation had fallen to 15. After two hours Alfie was dead.”