According to a report today the father has had three doctors filed with the papers for a private prosecution for conspiracy to murder.

He has no grounds to stand on,

I am sick of seeing people on facebook who work as cleaners in lidl attacking the staff at the hospital and saying they are killing kids and crap at their jobs.

These very people save thousands of childrens lives with very little praise. Some woman I have on fb because I know her daughter is spouting some rubbish saying all the staff in Alder Hey should be fired and people are agreeding. The stupid twat, proper making me angry.

He's in pain for his son and lashing out, probably had some dubious legal advice from a FB Law Specialist. His son is struggling for breath and he can't get him any help....its an awful situation for anyone to face

People are still angry at Alder Hey for the organ harvesting that went on and they are latching on to Alfie as q way to vent that anger. It is awful, I've read posts of people whose kids were in surgery when they were threatening to set off fire alarms begging them not to......they need to send all the protesters away and just concentrate on their baby now. So sad......

Indeed.

Whoever his lawyer is is taking advantage of his grief in order to make some cash, tbh. Despicable.

And you clearly know more about the situation than the lawyers he has consulted and the actual people involved.

The courts have stated the life support machine must be switched off so they cant then be culpable for murder

What sick people trying to bring harm to hundreds of ill kids

It says he's "threatened" past tense and has "plans" moving forward so we don't know, he could have grounds for some kind of legal action.

The same thing happened when my brother was born, the hospital were culpable, not to outright blame for his condition, but some serious faults were made and he was let down by some ridiculous "procedures" and there was grounds for legal action.

I feel so sorry for all the other families with sick kids at the hospital. It must be very difficult for them.

Ive heard some families have been shut outside because of the protests.

The hospital are being accused of not letting the boy go with his family yet they are denying families the right to see their sick children some who will not have long to live

What is a bit of a worry is that these court battles and hospital demonstrations will become a trend when people don't want to deal with terrible news. Hospital staff save a lot of lives and do an amazing job but are already under pressure.

Exactly - there's a social media mob for every occasion these days, it's getting dangerously out of control in my opinion.

I don't really agree at all with govts or doctors having the final say. I've had too many shoddy doctors. Doctors are not always right and sometimes they just add to the confusion/misery and can even be the cause of the initial problem. I lost 2 decades of my life to bad medical advice and malpractice, so I can't say that I can go on their word alone... hospitals and insurance have their own interests.. they'll give people some say, sure, but when it goes a way they don't like, they shut it down... the only ones that really can know what is best for the child is the parents. This is of course assuming in this case, they are good parents, and they're not simply just trying to get funding from the public for some other reason... doubtful, but it definitely happens...

Because we don't know all the facts, we don't know the level of care he has received, if he has received the finest care possible, if they have dropped the ball someplace, if they had turned every stone, if maybe the same medical team that is saying it's too late to save him maybe didn't make other bumbling mistakes along the way that would make the parents reasonably question their judgement ... Frankly, we don't know anything, if even they understand all that has been said to them. Even still, I think other people getting involved with protests and such on social media, it's all bizarre for me... the only reason this is even worthwhile to petition because it is an institution who is making this decision and thus the political issue... who is dictating when to pull life support.

I disagree with this as well and this is one reason why if US were to have "universal" healthcare, I'd want the system to still remain private as it is now, but with much stronger regulations (if a completely free and transparent market is not politically/ethically feasible here)...

I'll give example of why that happened yesterday. I had to make an emergency trip out of town to see my grandfather in the nursing home because he went off the rails after they adjusted his medication. This will be the 6th time they'd jacked with his medications and it causing his schizophrenia to return in full force... so he was calling my grandmother and other family members saying they were attempting to kill him and asking them to call police. He asked my grandmother if she had asked them to order the hit... hence me going out, because I'm the only one he has never been suspicious of. (Probably because I'm the baby of the family)

Anyway, why does that keep happening? Why do they keep changing his medications when all it does is lead to episodes (he has 0 issues otherwise and is completely normal). Because the doctors who are examining him are not private physicians. They are on call by the nursing home and work for the state. They work for Medicare... and Medicare is the one who wants them to jack with his meds because it'll reduce their costs and the doctors work for Medicare. His labs are normal. He gets a bit sleepy every now and then after medication time, but other than that, no side effects. He leads a completely normal life.

He has been on these medications for 15-20 years. There is absolutely no reason to change them, as he is 100% better when off them. Symptom free. No person would even know he has a psych disorder... so for them to keep jacking with his meds is not only inhumane (can you imagine being terrified someone is going to hurt you?), but it puts the family through significant stress as well. It also adds a financial burden because he is out of town as the only nursing home we could find to take him in (because he's a psych patient) is in Navasota... and we won't move him anyway because he likes it there, he trusts the staff and is very comfortable in that location.

So I realized, I would never want the state or doctors having final say on my care. To be quite frank here, even the most educated human beings on planet can be absolute bumbling morons when it comes to common sense. Being book smart, highly educated, well-researched does not make doctors immune from having terrible judgement and it absolutely doesn't make them incapable of bias. In fact, those people are much more likely to assume their own superiority, which would inflame issues with bias and prejudice in some cases. These sorts of errors and conflicts of interest happen everyday, even in the private industry. The irony, it was *gasp* the internet */gasp* that led my situation getting figured out and resolving my own medical issues... no help from doctors whatsoever who ignored my concerns at every turn, and in one case made me so sick, I couldn't be trusted to drive, much less run a stove for more than a year because I would turn the stove top on, black out and then be in the other room and have forgotten I'd even gotten up to start cooking myself a meal...

TDLR: They should let the child go to Italy. Intelligence isn't always everything. The parents are not going to be able to rest until they've literally tried everything they can... even if it's .00001% chance, a good parent knows when it is time. Moreover, if they're religious and it's a religious hospital taking them in, if it does come to it the child is taken off life support, then at least they will be in a very supportive community who won't make them feel patronized and ridiculous. But you, me, TiBB, Theresa May, Donald Trump have no business interfering in their decision of what's best for their child...

But if he were brain dead, then yes, that would be a completely different story... read about Jahi McMath. That happened very recently and her parents still have her on life support... if you are curious to see that extreme.

Innocent staff at Alder Hey threatened and harrased by moronic 'Alfie's Army' protestors again this morning.

My sympathy for the family is almost rock bottom, poor little boy but his father especially is a scumbag.

Maru, what has been said in court is that the child is more or less brain dead. They have said that tests show most brain function is gone, he can't see, hear, respond, eat, drink etc. He is in a semi vegitative state. You can't regenerate the brain. In this case and the case of Charlie Gard recently, this seems more a case of the parents being unable to accept that news. The hospital in Rome accept that all they can likely do is end of life care. The Court ruled it would not be fair to move him. There is no treatment or miracle cure. Of course if there were any hope of his receiving treatment that might help most people would support him getting it but where there is no treatment why move him and risk making him uncomfortable.

The difference between our medical system and the US is massive and our health care does not revolve around cash and greedy insurance companies and drug companies. Our healthcare professionals will likely never be paid enough for what they do and the NHS is viewed extreme affection in this country. We are very proud of our world class, free health care for all and fiercely protective of it.

Of course humans can make mistakes but on the whole these people save many many lives and they are dedicated. They aren't going to tell you there is no hope for your child unless there is no hope. This isn't the opinion of one person. It's the opinion of many, including independent medical people brought in.

Parents don't always know what is best, they have their own emotions to deal with and it's hard to see that prolonging a life hooked to a machine that isn't really a life lived is not necessarily in the child's best interests. Nor are parents in this situation likely to be thinking rationally. And they've brought a mob which is intimidating staff and the parents of other very sick children.

Well said.

He's in (what they used to call) a persistent vegetative state (now called unresponsive wakefulness) / in and out of coma and he will not recover. Its tragic, totally tragic, but if he did somehow wake up it would be a literal miracle... It simply won't happen.

In the meantime, the pain and distress they're causing to the families of other very sick children is abhorrent.

"Anyway, why does that keep happening?"

Its not like USA
its because of our free health service,
and the Italian Pope has nothing to do with this.


today Live on TV
ITV GMBHD
the dad claimed its a miss diagnosis?

Calling the father of this very sick little boy names is abhorrent, walk a mile in his shoes.

Total morons. Surely they could have protested in a different way.

So you think it is acceptable for the thug to organise protests to target the hospital and staff?

Do you not care for the families who are unable to be at their child's bedside because of this thug?

I'm not being funny but all he cares about is causing trouble and getting in the papers.

Yes
it appears like gangs there

Thug?

How judgemental.