Update April 5, 2018 5:40: Just hours after receiving new signs of hope, now Alfie Evans’ parents say that Alder Hey Children's Hospital still intends to remove life support that will end the life of their son on Friday. Read update here.
LIVERPOOL, England, April 5, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Baby Alfie Evans has received a glimmer of hope less than 24 hours before he was scheduled to die.
Steven Woolfe, the Member of the European Parliament who has been arguing on the child’s behalf, tweeted today that Alder Hey Children's Hospital has agreed to delay the removal of Alfie’s life support. Instead, he says, it “will consider the alternative options we presented.”
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
In a statement to Radio City News, Woolfe explained that in addition to reconsidering Alfie’s treatment, it would also assess whether Alfie was physically capable of making the trip to Italy.
.@Steven_Woolfe has told us he's held positive talks with Alder Hey Hospital who have agreed to suspend end of life care for Alfie Evans while a review is carried out as to whether he is fit to travel to Italy for further medical care pic.twitter.com/JbmuZjl2Ul
— Radio City News (@RadioCityNews) April 5, 2018
Evans is a 22-month-old boy with an unidentified neurodegenerative condition that Alder Hey Hospital claims is untreatable. For months, Alfie’s parents Tom Evans and Kate James have been locked in a legal battle with UK courts to stop the hospital from removing Alfie’s life support, and for the right to take their son to Rome’s Bambino Gesu Paediatric Hospital for palliative care.
Their appeals have been denied at every turn, most recently at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France. Tom Evans said earlier this week that the hospital intended to turn off Alfie’s life support on Friday.
The exact details of Alfie’s new treatment are not yet known, but his father has previously expressed his desire for doctors to reduce Alfie’s dosage of the sedative, anti-epileptic drug Clobazam. Evans suspects the amount of the drug Alfie’s been taking is partially responsible for his difficulty breathing, citing recent examples of Alfie taking breaths on his own after a recent reduction from 14.1 mg to 11.8 mg.
On Wednesday, La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana reported that he has been in contact with the Vatican, seeking asylum for his son. “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.
On Wednesday, Pope Francis tweeted that the Evans family had his prayers, as well as his hope that “everything necessary may be done in order to continue compassionately accompanying little Alfie Evans.”
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