I’m heartbroken for Alfie’s family. But it’s wrong to turn on the NHS staff who have also found this little boy’s plight so traumatic
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ho should decide what’s best for a sick child? Must the parents’ wishes always be adhered to, or should the advice of doctors always be followed?
The controversy around little Alfie Evans has been so sad. And, of course, I have huge sympathy with his parents, Kate James and Tom Evans, after their little boy died early yesterday morning.
The couple, from Liverpool, have been through a horribly painful time. After the seriously ill 23-month-old’s life support was turned off on Monday, the parents had bids to take their son to Italy for treatment knocked back.
Coping with a very ill child is hard enough. But when you can’t agree with doctors about the best course of action, how do you even begin to manage?
My feeling is that decisions about care and treatment should ultimately lie with the experts.
Sometimes you need people to make extremely difficult decisions for you.
If you’re the parent of a child with a very poor quality of life, how agonising must it be to make that decision yourself? It must be horrific. If you decide to withdraw life support,you then have to live with that decision for the rest of your days. That is a massive psychological
Today’s playgrounds have become sanitised, thanks to the “nanny state” and “snowflake” parents.
That’s not me saying so. It was Oliver Wicksteed, the grandson of Charles pressure. So if you bow to the expertise of doctors and follow their advice to let your loved one go, maybe it makes it easier to live with in years to come.
It’s easy for me to say, though. No one knows how they’d react in such a situation. It’s just too unimaginable to contemplate.
Let’s spare a thought for the workers at Alder Hey Hospital, too, where Alfie was looked after.
Many of them won’t have been involved in Alfie’s care for the past 17 months. Yet the chairman and chief executive of Alder Hey released a statement saying staff had been subjected to abuse, in person, online and by phone.
It was even claimed that workers were told to cover up their uniforms outside of work. I understand it has been a heartbreaking story and one where emotions run high. But how can this be right?
The protesters see it as very clear cut. But I think most of us can see both sides and find it impossible to come down so strongly one way or another.
Everyone involved must have found the whole experience so traumatic.
We can only hope that Alfie’s parents, and the medical staff involved, will manage, in time, to find peace. Wicksteed, who is credited with inventing slides and swings.
He said his grandad would have “fought tooth and nail” to avoid any regulations which could restrict children’s ability to have fun and enjoy themselves.
Oliver – you are so right. It’s hard, but letting our children go and have adventures is one of the best things we can do for them.
There isn’t danger lurking around every corner. We shouldn’t over-protect.
We should let children take risks and learn from their mistakes. I wasn’t surprised to read that there is more suspicious betting in tennis than any other sport.
Most of it happens on the lowest rungs of the circuit. In-play betting is also a problem.
I was scouting for the Fed Cup at an event in Auckland once and was on my ipad taking notes.
I was taken off to be questioned. Once I showed my ID and explained what I was doing, it was fine.
It doesn’t help that so many tournaments are sponsored by betting companies.
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