Alison Phillips: Mob that tried to storm hospital has nothing to do with little Alfie Evans
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By the time you read this, little Alfie Evans may already have slipped from life.
On Monday evening, the life support machine which has kept him here with his devoted parents these last 16 months was switched off.
Only a miracle would enable him to see his second birthday on May 9.
Once again a family’s battle to keep their child alive has made national news.
Like the family of Charlie Gard before them, Kate James and Tom Evans have done everything they can to avoid parting with their son.
And I feel only dreadful sadness for them.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
(Image: Daily Mirror)
But for the mob who tried to storm Alder Hey hospital, spitting abuse at doctors and nurses supposedly wanting ‘Justice for Alfie’, I feel only contempt.
If these people weren’t shouting and threatening in Alfie’s name, it would be something else, somewhere else.
For their affected rage has nothing to do with a sick little boy and everything to do with themselves.
Whipped into a frenzy by the ill informed hysteria of social media where moral outrage always trumps reasoned thought, they brought mob mentality to Alder Hey. To a hospital which cares for 270,000 ­children every year and saves thousands of their lives.
(Image: Daily Mirror)
(Image: Daily Mirror)
To doctors and nurses, working long hours in ­difficult conditions for ever decreasing pay. To other young patients who faced the terrifying barrage of protesters on their way to already terrifying medical appointments.
You’d think this mob might realise that any decisions on Alfie’s care are now in the hands of the courts. And surely they realise that those who dedicate their lives to medicine do it to save kids – not kill them.
But for some people nowadays the realities of a situation don’t matter. It’s all about emotion and achieving some personal satisfaction from hearing their voice loud in a crowd.
The world has come a long way from my grandparents’ day.
(Image: Daily Mirror)
They wouldn’t have dreamed to ­question the judgement of a doctor, or a teacher, or any of ‘their betters’.
Of course it was right that as a society we gained the courage to challenge the establishment. Without it there would never have been Justice for the 96 at Hillsborough, the BBC sex scandals would have gone uninvestigated and Stephen Lawrence’s murder unresolved.
But I can’t help feeling that the pendulum is swinging too far when no deference remains even for those who spend their days saving sick babies.
Expressing anger may have made the Alder Hey mob feel better about the way they believe the entire establishment treats them.
But it did absolutely nothing for beautiful little Alfie Evans.