Alfie Evans was allowed to die based on unanimous, qualified medical evidence that was placed before the judiciary, which is entirely separate from the government. This ridiculous idea of "the government putting him to death" that's doing the rounds in the US media at the moment is disgustingly disingenuous and, what is worse, factually far from the mark.

Alfie's parents, at no point, owned his life. He did, and every qualified, trained medical professional agreed that it was not in HIS interests to be kept alive with no realistic hope of recovery. It's dreadfully sad and I don't in the least blame the parents for wanting a different outcome, but this is Terri Schiavo all over again with the added media abuse of the fact that it's a child to further their own agenda.

Except there were offers from international hospitals and doctors who disagreed and wanted to treat him. It's in the article I linked to.

And, as you point out, the UK legal system shut that down.

He had no brain! There's no possible treatment.

Yes - it was made for the patient against the patient's legal guardians - his own mother and father. The government-run system overruled the patient's legal guardians.

This is precisely the issue at hand: a loss of freedom resulting from a healthcare system ultimately ruled by the government itself. The government has final say over healthcare decisions.

Quite frankly I'm much more scared of a system where a parent has complete and absolute control over a child no matter what than one where a court can step in and overrule a decision of a parent. The doctors and courts owe their duty of care to the patient not to the parents.

No, the medical professionals, i.e. doctors do.

"the unanimous opinion of the doctors who have examined him and the scans of his brain is that almost all of his brain has been destroyed".

What happens in a non state run healthcare system when a parent refuses to accept someone's death in the ICU?

The UK doctors punted, agreed. But Italian doctors believed different treatments were warranted. The Italian government gave the boy citizenship.

In a private healthcare system, the parents would be free to pursue that. But in the state-run system of the UK, there was no such freedom. Alfie Evans died last Monday.

Again no.

"The Italian hospital had acknowledged it could not find a cure, but had proposed maintaining Alfie’s life for about two weeks while doctors tried to investigate his condition."

There are no treatments - even that seems to be agreed.

> In a private healthcare system, the parents would be free to pursue that

If they could afford to write a blank cheque for open ended life support. Any insurance would defer to the consensus of medical opinion and cease treatment. They would have ceased cover long before the 2 year trail of court cases and appeals all the way up to rejection from the European Court of Human Rights (not part of the EU or UK govt).

https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/thomas-evans-v-alder-...

Given this new evidence, I change my opinion on this: the state-run healthcare did offer the best advice.

(The question of state-run medical systems restricting freedom still applies here, even though the freedom would simply have been different end-of-life care.)

Contrast this with the US, where the hospital can announce the plan, and the parents have to sue to stop it happening.

That feels substantially worse.

Especially because in the UK the parents will have legal aid available to pay for their legal representation (Alfie's parents went through seven firms of solicitors) and because the child will have their own independent legal representation.

Please don't spread misinformation about this particular topic.

edit Downvoted for citing a verifiable fact. This is a remarkably emotional, politically-charged thread. Comments and voting in this thread are driven not by logic and reason, but by emotion and political bias.

This has little to do with universal healthcare, and is more a case of justice (purportedly - I'm not trying to be a judge myself here) protecting a children from its parents.

You are misinformed. The article I linked to showed that Italian doctors "said they would investigate different treatments."

"But I came, on the consensus of every doctor from every country who had ever evaluated Alfie's condition, to the inevitable conclusion (following 7 days of evidence) that Alfie's brain had been so corroded by his Neurodegenerative Brain Disorder that there was simply no prospect of recovery. By the time I requested the updated MRI scan in February, the signal intensity was so bright that it revealed a brain that had been almost entirely wiped out. In simple terms the brain consisted only of water and CSF. The connective tissues and the white matter of the brain that had been barely visible 6 months earlier had now vanished entirely and with it the capacity for sight, hearing, taste, the sense of touch. All that could be offered by the Bambino Gesu Hospital in Rome was an alternative palliative care plan. An end of life plan. And so, on a true deconstruction of the issues, it is that that this case has been about: what is the appropriate end of life plan for Alfie?"

Without diving into the decisions in that particular case, this is in general something I consider good. There are parents that abuse their children. It’s also something that may lead to unacceptable outcomes, the law is always imperfect.

I agree if Italy had agreed to take him then they should have let him move him.

I don't think the child died due to the NHS, but sometimes bureaucrats can be a bit over-zealous.