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AIBU?

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Original poster

To post a message about a missing child

189 replies

alreadytaken · 29/08/2014 09:54

A five-year-old boy with a brain tumour has been taken without consent from hospital by his parents, sparking a major police hunt for the family.

Ashya King was taken from Southampton General Hospital and is now believed to be in France with his parents and six siblings.

Police said he needs constant medical care and there are "serious concerns" for his life if he is not found today.

The family, from Southsea, Portsmouth, were travelling in a grey coloured Hyundai I800 Style CRDI, registration KP60 HWK.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28978655

OP posts:
PhaedraIsMyName · 31/08/2014 09:40

I think you're being harsh on Chopinbabe. We do not have all the facts; we have the family's side of it and obviously the other side of it cannot be fully presented to the public.

GimmeMySquash · 31/08/2014 09:41

The BBC said there is a petition now, has anyone got a link to it?

I feel so bad for this boy and his family. Their human rights to a private family life and their data have been breached by agencies and the press. I wonder if they can sue anyone and if they can, I hope they do. This could happen to any of us or our family.

There is a thread in chat about Dr's being wrong, maybe it is time we loose this Dr is always right attitude.

I wonder if the Dr had a God complex and got a bit gunho over it all as they were JW and they would not bend over for everything he wanted to do to the child to make his life easy not give blood during the operation and so forth and he hated having a patients parents not do everything he demanded. I understand various Dr's didn't agree with each other as well about the child's care.

I think the press/Dr's and police though the public would go against this family as they were JW. It ended up being an own goal for the nanny state on this occasion.

MyFairyKing · 31/08/2014 10:11

There must be more to this that meets the eye. Many, many parents choose to take their children to access treatment abroad. Ashya's parents obviously felt that they had to take him in this way but I wonder why. Were the doctors vehemently opposing it and why?

Either way, it's appalling for the parents, the little boy and his siblings. I hate the way they've been treated like criminals when - given the information in the media - they were trying to do the best by their child. There are no winners in this situation. I cannot sit here and judge and I won't.

FraidyCat · 31/08/2014 10:16

I think you will find that trained and experienced doctors know quite a bit more about medical matters than those who are not.

You might believe that doctors should have a legal right to impose whatever treatments they think are necessary, and withhold any they think aren't, even if only because the NHS can't afford them, rather than because they are ineffective, but as far as I know that only become true in exceptional circumstances when a court decides to override the right of a patient to decide.

This seems to be different from previous cases, as the parents do appear to have a perfectly reasonable belief that what they want for their child is better than what the NHS was proposing.

I've always been uneasy at the Orwellian reach of UK state. Having watched the video, this seems to be exactly the kind of scenario I feared. Though, in fairness to the UK, it looks like the law may protect the family from the institutions.

HolyQuadrityDrinkFeckArseGirls · 31/08/2014 10:40

Absolutely disgusting, the latest developments. A very ill child is separated from his parents in a distressing manner and taken away from them to be among strangers. His parents have not broken any laws and said they were seeking alternative treatment not offered in nhs.

HolyQuadrityDrinkFeckArseGirls · 31/08/2014 10:42

Doctors are not always right. I spent 6 months asking for help with something that was clearly wrong and only after that tine I found a HCP that helped me. Others never heard about the condition, which incidentally is rather common Hmm

Icimoi · 31/08/2014 10:46

I can't say what I'd do in A's parents shoes but if I truly felt that proton beam therapy was more effective and less damaging then i would most likely do anything in my power to get my child there.

The trouble is that they didn't. They seem to have taken the child out to go on a long and arduous car journey with a vague plan that they could sell a house to fund treatment that they hadn't arranged. Selling a house would normally take some time, and apparently the treatment isn't available in Spain where they took him, so he'd have to have yet another journey.

I could understand this if they had the treatment all set up and the hospital was still saying no, but I actually find it incredibly unlikely that they would - the hospital would know that they had no legal right to stop the parents.

Icimoi · 31/08/2014 10:49

His parents have not broken any laws and said they were seeking alternative treatment not offered in nhs.

You don't know that, HolyQuality. Preventing a child from getting medical treatment can be a crime. And, as I've pointed out, they don't seem to have had the alternative treatment arranged.

littlejohnnydory · 31/08/2014 11:10

Chopin, you're being stupid.

My opinion is that the boy and his family have been let down by the medical team - because even if the treatment they want isn't licensed or isn't appropriate, conventional treatment carried no guarantee of success either and the treatment provided does depend on arbitary treatment protocols that often don't take individual factors into account. They're right to say that there is trial and error in cancer treatment, often there is no way of knowing whether an individual will respond without trying something. I worked on a children's cancer ward for a while and it isn't unusual for parents to do their own research and want a different treatment - and some do take children abroad for treatments unavailable in the uk. Obviously we only have one side of the story but whatever has happened, the parents have somehow been led to believe that they will be kept away from their son if they question the treatment provided, which is their right. I can believe it too, there are so many condescending and arrogant doctors out there who don't like to be questioned and won't talk to patients and families on an equal level because they don't think they can possibly understand - not all doctors obviously, but a proportion. I know that if it were my child and a life and death issue I wouldn't accept the treatment blindly or without doing my own research.

It is true though that patients and families in desperate situations can be driven to raise and spend huge amounts of money on untrialled treatments with little chance of success - and that choosing that option above conventional treatment could worsen an outcome. But I've seen many families do this and take children abroad for untested treatments against the advice of doctors here - I'm not sure why this family are any different. And the sad fact is that this little boy is very likely to die of his condition either way.

My feeling is that the Consultant has started throwing his weight around, that they absolutely could have taken him abroad but he's threatemed them with a Court Order he could never have obtained and frightened them into thinking their child would be alone and seriously ill in hospital if they questioned him....whereas if they didn't, they'd watch him die. No wonder they felt they had no choice.

HolyQuadrityDrinkFeckArseGirls · 31/08/2014 11:19

icimoi i know that from the bbc article and video. The journalist said exactly that.

HolyQuadrityDrinkFeckArseGirls · 31/08/2014 11:20

And that was what the police said as the journalist acknowledged.

Icimoi · 31/08/2014 11:33

HolyQuality, since when were journalists experts on the law?

Icimoi · 31/08/2014 11:34

Which police? Why would they be questioning the parents if they were satisfied no crime had been committed?

Icimoi · 31/08/2014 11:37

Littlejohnny, one of the things I question about the father's version is the statement that the doctors threatened them with a court order just for investigating alternative treatments. They knew they were dealing with someone capable of researching medical points on the internet, they would have to be stupid to make a threat that they knew he could check out just as easily and find out that it was baseless.

HolyQuadrityDrinkFeckArseGirls · 31/08/2014 11:39

The British police liaising with the Spanish police. The police of the country that sets the law that the parents, we are told, did not break. I can see you are just itching for them to be 'guilty' of whaeter you have phantomed.

Icimoi · 31/08/2014 12:06

I'm not itching for the parents to be guilty of anything, HolyQuadrity: please don't start making things up just for the sake of having a go. I simply pointed out that it isn't necessarily correct to proclaim that these parents definitely haven't broken the law, because preventing a child from getting necessary medical treatment and nutrition certainly can be a criminal offence.

I don't know enough about the facts to know whether they have committed an offence or not - and neither do you.

littlejohnnydory · 31/08/2014 12:09

It's true that there could be child protection concerns that aren't public. But I can see it happening tbh that some (by no means all) doctors might make that threat with no foundation whatsoever. I've seen similar things happen.

ICanSeeTheSun · 31/08/2014 13:36

I think some people want there to be some sort of back story.

The media and police should never have been involved if this was the case of the parents going abroad for treatment rather than continuing treatment with the Nhs.

CremeEggThief · 31/08/2014 16:47

Surely the parents should have the final say over treatment, not the doctors? Isn't quality of life in some cases more important than quantity?

I hope this family are reunited soon and I am so sorry for what they are going through. Intervention by the authorities has made an already awful situation worse Sad.

sanfairyanne · 31/08/2014 22:29

and now that poor 5 year old is alone, not even his siblings allowed in

plinkyplonks · 01/09/2014 08:13

:( It's a disgrace :( Please can everyone share on Twitter, FB - the more signatures the better.

diddl · 01/09/2014 08:38

So what have they been arrested for??

And their child is being deprived of family with just a few months to live?

that is just disgraceful.

GimmeMySquash · 01/09/2014 08:44

I hope the foreign secretary will intervene if the family refuse to be extrodited, as if they do refuse they may be in prison for months waiting for a hearing. They should also ask for the prevention of the boy from being with his family.