Parents of Alfie Evans to meet doctors to discuss taking tot home

The parents of Alfie Evans are to meet doctors today to discuss taking their son home.
Alfie EvansAlfie Evans
Alfie Evans

Alfie's father, Tom Evans, spoke outside Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool this morning after his family lost a court application to transfer their son to Italy for treatment.

CRIME: Sheffield man charged with attempted murder after 'targeted' slash attackTerminally-ill Alfie's life support was withdraw this week.

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LISTED: The Sheffield criminals serving the longest sentences ever handed out in the cityHis parents, who are both in their early twenties and from Liverpool, say life-support treatment should continue to be provided to their 23-month-old son.

REVEALED: The 20 worst anti-social behaviour hotspots in SheffieldSpecialists disagree and judges have concluded that continuing to provide life-support treatment to Alfie is futile and not in his best interests.

Doctors at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool stopped providing life-support treatment late on Monday after Alfie's parents had lost two rounds of fights in the High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights.

But the couple, who want Alfie to be flown to a Rome hospital, mounted a 'one last chance' challenge.

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The couple said their son had confounded specialists' expectations by continuing to breathe unaided despite being disconnected from a ventilator and provided with only palliative care.

They said he had defied doctors' expectations and his continued survival amounted to a significant change of circumstances which merited a review.

A High Court judge ruled against them on Tuesday and three Court of Appeal judges dismissed a challenge to that decision yesterday.

Lawyers representing Alder Hey bosses say Alfie's condition is irreversible and there was no evidence that it had changed.

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Today, Alfie's father said: "We got rejected yesterday to go to Italy unfortunately. We could take it further but would that be the right thing to do, would there be more criticism?

"So what we do today is we have a meeting with the doctors at Alder Hey and we now start asking to go home."

He added: "Alfie doesn't need intensive care any more. Alfie is lying on the bed with one litre of oxygen going into his lungs and the rest is him. Some people say it's a miracle, it's not a miracle, it's a misdiagnosis."

Tom added: "He's been off a ventilator for three days now, there's been no deterioration.

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"He hasn't woke up, he's still a little bit weak but what we ask for is to go home to sustain his life."

He said Alfie was 'still fighting' and was 'comfortable' and 'content' with a stable heart rate.

Tom said Alder Hey doctors were 'wrong' and added: "Alfie lives, comfortably, happily, without ventilation, without any form of ventilation.

"That must be enough for you now to consider that Alfie may prove you wrong."

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He said: "All I ask for now is for this meeting to be a positive one and I hope to have Alfie, on the terms of mine and Alder Hey, to be home within a day or two.

"If the meeting doesn't go well today, well then I'll go back to court."

He added: "As I sit next to Alfie's bedside, every second of every day, it encourages me more and more that he will live for 'x' amount of months, possibly years."

He said he hoped to be able to make arrangements with the hospital to get a care plan in place today.