Alfie's Case Shines the Light on the Cultural Shift from Medicine's Standard of "First Do No Harm" to a New Standard

And the new standard is don't waste money treating those the medical establishment considers defective. Just say they're "dying" (aren't we all?) and deny them ordinary care, i.e., food and water. We all die very quickly without hydration and nutrition!

 Maybe if Alfie's parents were same sex
he would have been more sympathetic. Ya think?

What we're seeing in Alfie's case is a quality of life evaluation that Judge Hayden put very succinctly when he basically swept aside Alfie's humanity saying, "The brain cannot regenerate itself and there is virtually nothing of his brain left." [Oh...and by the way, Hayden is a pro-gay activist. He also condemned to starvation a woman with minimal consciousness. One is tempted to ask if he would like someone to judge his life as he's judged others.]

For a judge to make himself a medical expert in a case he is deciding is seriously problematic.


What scientific background does Judge Hayden have? Is he a neurologist or an expert on brain regeneration?

The fact is his opinion is wrong. Regeneration of the brain is not only possible but there are many examples of patients whose brains have, in fact, healed.  Do a web search on "pediatric neuroplasticity" and read how baby brains can regenerate.  An article by Dr. Karen Pape, M.D. points out that the beliefs of the past that a baby's brain could not regenerate have been proven wrong.

The Mayo Clinic has a center that focuses on brain regeneration in both children and adults. There is also research going on using stem cells to repair human organs including the brain. To say that "the brain cannot regenerate itself." is to show total ignorance about modern medical research. It is especially ironic in Alfie's case considering the hospital admits having no diagnosis for his condition.

What we do know about England's health system is that they are philosophically committed to "end of life so-called care" and, in fact, had a program in place until 2014 call "Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient" (LCP). The program involved a muti-disciplinary team that developed a plan for what they described as dignified death which often involved denying food and water and sedating patients to deliberately hasten their deaths.

In one case an elderly woman was hospitalized with an injured shoulder. She developed pneumonia and the hospital declared her terminal and put in place instructions to give her nothing by mouth. She was begging for food and water and was ignored. Her granddaughters questioned staff who insisted the woman was dying but would not tell her from what. The funeral director came to consult with her family and found the woman laughing and joking. Fortunately, the family intervened and she lived, but hers was not an isolated case and under the LCP many patients died, not from any disease, but from dehydration. This is becoming common worldwide under the "third path" of so-called palliative care which is all about non-care and managed death (not life).

While the LCP program ended, it's replacement in the nationalized health service may be even worse according to a doctor speaking to the Telegraph in 2015 about the new guidelines:

New NHS guidelines on “end of life” care are worse than the Liverpool Care Pathway and could push more patients to an early grave, a leading doctor has warned.

Prof Patrick Pullicino, one of the first medics to raise concerns over the pathway, said the national proposals would encourage hospital staff to guess who was dying, in the absence of any clear evidence, and to take steps which could hasten patients’ death.

The Liverpool Care Pathway - which meant fluids and treatment could be withdrawn, and sedation given to the dying - was officially phased out last year, on the orders of ministers.

It followed concern that under the protocols, thirsty patients had been denied water and left desperately sucking at sponges.

How horrifying is that? But it was the "world class" protocol planned for Alfie after the ventilator was disconnected. But what is the evidence that Alfie was dying? He may be brain damaged, but that is not the same thing.

The fact is that the culture of death wants to eliminate suffering (their own) by eliminating the one who requires care. I was talking to a friend about her experience with hospice (which she declined for her mom). The only suffering the hospice team was concerned about was my friend's, not her mom's. They wanted to give her grief counseling. The hospital pushed hospice on her and when she refused they wouldn't give her home care instructions when they left. She had to get them from the ambulance driver who drove her mom home. He  overheard the nurses talking and wrote the instructions down for my friend.

Pray to St. Joseph for a happy and holy death.

She told me that hospice totally takes over control. They told her under hospice care she and her momcould not use their own doctors and all meds would be prescribed by the hospice team. Hospice would also not treat any medical conditions that would arise. Her response? No thanks! Her mom lived six more years.

Not all hospice programs are draconian. My experience with hospice  was very positive when I was at the bedside of my parents who were dying of cancer (my dad in 1985 and my mom in 2002). But I know many people who watched their loved ones deliberately murdered by an LCP-style protocol: no food, no water, just terminal sedation. In one case, a friend fought with her mom and siblings while they decided to kill her dad. The family has still not recovered and my friend would not go to the funeral.  She told her mother, a life-long Catholic, that she should not go to Communion.

And that, my friends, is euthanasia. As a baby boomer, I'm fully expecting to be given a push into the next life, not in God's time, but by the zealous efforts of the death peddlers. And my fellow boomers better get ready for it, because we're the next target group. We cost too much and contribute too little.

My advice? Stay close to St. Joseph and pray for a happy death.