To ask people to PLEASE not picket hospitals?

[SerfTerf]

Or consider any kind of direct action against a hospital because of decisions concerning any individual patient.

It's irresponsible.

It's an invasion of the Huns

They are now saying that life support won't be turned off today and that GOSH are giving more time to the family?

"All parties agree the proposed treatment in the US, wouldnt cause Charlie further harm."

Well, apart from leaving him in pain.

Yes, I saw that Music; there was something said about friends and relatives not being able to get to the hospital until tomorrow to say goodbye, so perhaps this influenced their decision

Ah right, perhaps that's the reason Puzzled

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40462831

This whole Charlie's Army thing seems to me a sort of dreadful mawkish prurient sentimentality, about as far away from true caring and support as it's possible to be and a platform for some quite damaged and disturbed people.

I'm worried about this Nasty entitled underbelly that this country has at moment, how anybody could think that doctors would lie just to get one up on the parents is beyond me

Meant to say there was a great program on last year about gosh and the really ill babies, I suggest a few people on here need to Watch it to see how those doctors work

You are spot on there, Seagull, depressing as it is to admit.

Its ridiculous to suggest this hinges on the experimental nature of whats offered. GOSH have no difficulty in experimenting on children (re post re Lab 'animals'). The issue is simply, this is GOSHs patient, not any one elses. They have successfully point blank blocked any other route of treatment, experimental or not.

Luckily for little Layla (below) she wasnt an American child, being refused to be discharged from an american hospital, to try experimental treatment in GOSH as a last ditch effort to help her. I wonder if the US courts would have taken the same stance in Laylas case if that were the case, as our courts have in Charlies?

www.newscientist.com/article/dn28454-gene-editing-saves-life-of-girl-dying-from-leukaemia-in-world-first/

You do not belong to a hospital . I can categorically tell you that from an NHS worker.

The hospital you use is the one that is best for you

Caroline have you read the transcript of the judgement? It states quite clearly that there is no trial, the treatment hasn't even been through basic animal testing in the condition in question. It's been used to treat a tiny number of much older patients with a different condition none of whom have brain damage!

To do medical testing on a human baby in the terminal stages of illness is an abhorrent suggestion and thankfully doesn't meet the requirements for ethical approval. It's time for people to accept that Charlie cannot be saved, no matter how much anyone wishes it were otherwise. No amount of Facebook osmo-doctoring by people who understand nothing about medicine or caring for the terminally ill is going to make any difference. Gosh have not "blocked" anything (they applied for ethics permission to treat him but by the time it was granted he was beyond help) they have simply said that there's no more they can do. They can't magic him better, they'd do it in a heartbeat if they could.

Carolinesbeanies
Are you thick or just willfully ignorant?
I take it you havent read the court judgment. The independent guardian agreed it's time to turn the life support off. Several courts have agreed it's time to turn the life support off and those courts have taken advise from independent doctors (from Spain I think) who also agreed it's time to turn the life support off.
Stop demonising the doctors at GOSH. It's despicable behaviour and doesn't help Charlie or any of the multitudes of poorly children they help every year.

It's ridiculous to suggest it doesn't. It isn't GOSH who made the decision in any case, it's the court.

The fact is, nobody has been able to find one clinician on the planet who thinks they have any chance of providing any treatment to Charlie that will offer a remotely realistic chance of improving his condition. If you want parents to be able to take him to the US to a doctor who doesn't think anything can be done (would the doctor still take him now anyway?) then what you're saying is that you think it's ok for him to be experimented on. If there was some possibility of it being different, then maybe things would be different... but they're not.

And your article has nothing to do with anything unless and until you can provide proof that there was also no doctor who thought there was any chance of the treatment assisting. That isn't it.

Fb and Twitter have enabled a baying mob mentality to develop, and the ignorance of those taking part is terrifying. So many people who just know that the hospital and the courts are doing this as a power trip and that they (the posters) know far better what is in Charlie's best interests.

The new delay to the withdrawal of life support, agreed between the parents and GOSH, is now being seized on on (some sections of) social media as evidence that GOSH are just twisting the knife even further, and by saying yesterday that it would be today then allowing more time are doing it deliberately to add further torture to the parents by messing with their heads.

I really, really despair at the attitudes being shown.

Meant to say there was a great program on last year about gosh and the really ill babies, I suggest a few people on here need to Watch it to see how those doctors work

GOSH would have picked and chose who went on telly. It wouldn't have been an accurate reflection.

Yes, I'm sure that outside of those nice doctors and nurses shown the the programme Angel, that the rest of the staff are callous brutes intent on prolonging the suffering of their patients :hmm:

Or even

"It wouldn't have been an accurate reflection."
What makes you think that?

Agree with the pp who talk about the baying mob mentality and the way social media and forums such as this one (sorry MN!) allow echo chambers to build up.
We have seen it with Grenfell, the refugee crisis and now with poor little Charlie, although I have to say IMO his parents are feeding it.
Everyone in authority is wrong. Every 'ordinary person' is right. The rich are to blame for everything. Big business is evil. There is only one correct and moral view - and anyone not sharing it is rounded on.
Everything is about emotion and feelings - experts know nothing.
I despair sometimes.

Angel you are being unnecessarily disrespectful now.

Nobody ever wants to find themselves dealing with their child being cared for at GOSH because it means things are very very serious.

A very close friend of mine however did find herself in that position and for several years her son was under their care and thatcher was second to none, both medically and personally. My friend would be the first to state that those tv shows were an excellent and totally accurate depiction of how the hospital runs. The dedication and professionalism of all the staff she came into contact with was outstanding.

Please read this article
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3103456.stm
It is about a little girl called Laura Davies whose family raised funds to take her to the USA for experimental medical treatments.

What are you saying, Talkin? That Charlie and Laura are in the same situation?

That if it was right to send Laura to the US for pioneering treatment, it's right for Charlie?

You cannot draw comparisons between them. They were suffering from very different diseases.

The US doctor thought they could help Laura. The US doctor has said he cannot help Charlie.

Charlie is on life support. Laura was not.

Charlie is brain damaged. Laura was not.

Not helpful.

talkin I don't understand what point you're trying to make with that article. It's s totally different situation.

Laura Davies was the case where many medics decided that "can" and "should" are not always the same thing.
Hence why GOSH have focused on the child more than the wishes of the parents (and their tabloid supporters)