Less than 24-hours before Alfie Evans was scheduled to die, Alder’s Children Hospital agreed to delay taking him off of life support.
After months of intervention by the European Parliament, Steven Woolfe, a member, tweeted that the hospital agreed to delay their plans. Woolfe tweeted that the hospital agreed to “consider the alternative options we presented.” Woolfe stated that along with delaying the removal of life support, the hospital would decide if Alfie would be physically capable to make a trip to Italy for treatment.
Just had a meeting at @AlderHey with Alfie's parents @Alfiesarmy16. Hospital agreed not to end Alfie's life today and will consider the alternative options we presented, including for Alfie to recieve treatment available in Italy.
— Steven Woolfe MEP (@Steven_Woolfe) April 5, 2018
Back in August, Alfie was given only a few days to live after spending 8 months in a coma. Experts in the UK could not officially name what was going on with Alfie, but they believed it might have been a mitochondrial condition. Charlie Gard, the terminally ill UK boy who died in 2017, had the same condition.
READ: The Next Charlie Gard? Family Reportedly Gearing Up for a Fight to Save Their Sick Baby’s Life
Alfie was first hospitalized in December of 2016, when he developed an infection in his chest. Prior to the hospitalization, his parents Thomas and Kate, had brought Alfie to the doctors for developmental issues.
On a fundraising page it stated:
“After a couple of weeks we noticed he wasn’t doing things he should e.g lifting his head up,looking at us for more than 20 seconds,grabbing his dummy,eating his hands,making gaga noises,etc. We also noticed he was doing a jerking movement with his hands, arms and legs and eyes would roll up. He always had his hands clenched into a fist too. He just didn’t do what he should of been doing so Kate took him the doctors, overall three times, and doctors said he was lazy and a late developer.”
Alder’s Children Hospital stated that Alfie’s condition is a mystery that is untreatable. Over the past couple of months, Thomas and Kate have been battling the hospital in UK courts, as the hospital has wanted to remove Alfie’s life support. They want to take their son to Rome’s Bambino Gesu Paediatric Hospital for different treatment.
Despite their demands, they have made no headway. At the end of March, they appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France to let them seek care for Alfie abroad. The panel voted against it, stating Alder’s Children Hospital was performing according to regulations.
Matters only escalated when the hospital said they were going to take Alfie off of life support on Friday, April 6, according to Thomas Evans facebook.
After European Parliament, Steven Woolfe, made his announcement today, the Evans family rejoiced with hope. It has not been said what the next moves will be, but Thomas Evans has asked the hospital to lower some of Alfies medicine. He believes Clobazam, the sedative, anti-epileptic drug, has hurt Alfies ability to breath. He stated Alfie could breath on his own when they reduced the mg dose by 3.
Evans told La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana that he had reached out to the Pope for help. “I am asking the Pope to help us. I beg him again, we need to be taken into the Vatican, here Alfie has no escape: he will not be accompanied but killed,” Evans said.
Wednesday, Pope Francis responded to the Evans family, tweeting, that he was praying for them, as well as hoping everyone was doing everything in their power to heal Alfie.
It is my sincere hope that everything necessary may be done in order to continue compassionately accompanying little Alfie Evans, and that the deep suffering of his parents may be heard. I am praying for Alfie, for his family and for all who are involved.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) April 4, 2018