Little boy has been removed from hospital by his parents

[Itsfab]

He is very sick, needs constant treatment. His parents have taken him to France.

I don't understand why the hospital didn't notice or alert the police for 6 hours.

The police won't comment on the parents being Jehovah's Witnesses.

It sounds wrong when the statement said he was removed without consent. The child is theirs, should be allowed to be in charge of him, but of course it is he that will lose his life if not cared for and that isn't in his best interests necessarily.

I hope he is found and can be cured.

I have met some truly incompetent NHS doctors. I was told they were incompetent by the private doctors I had to pay to sort out the mess the NHS ones caused.

If you think incompetence is an NHS issue I have very bad news for you wetaugust, my sister is facing her fourth operation due to a very expensive private surgeon failing to recognise the source of her problems when even a lay person such as myself could tell there was a serious problem with her wound breaking down and failing to heal. There was a very simple solution if he had treated it properly 6 months ago.

Arsenic I thought the mother's picture looked like a mugshot.

Oh not just me. I don't know why I just explained mugshots like a prat for the benefit of our 'if it were me id just fly straight to prague poster maybe.

So the parents are in a prison cell while their son is in hospital on his own I'm so fucking angry about this whole thing.

He went into great detail about why he didn't want to do what the doctor was saying they would do. And said he couldn't question it because he was scared of having his son removed from his care and being alone.

Also remember they wouldn't have felt able to wait and react to developments one by one because they were aware that a civil order or injunction was a possibility that would cut off their options fast.

But it absolutely wouldn't have cut off their options fast. As this wasn't an urgent life or death situation,the hospital wouldn't have been able to get a court order without giving the parents notice and contacting the Official Solicitor so that he could represent the child. If the hospital was threatening a court order on the basis the father claims, i.e. that they were looking for alternative opinions, they would have been laughed out of court - and in fact I'm sure that they wouldn't even have tried.

If the hospital had taken action on the basis that the parents were refusing the current medical treatment, the parents would have every opportunity of bringing their own expert evidence in favour of the proton beam option - they might even have made a cross-application requiring the NHS to fund that treatment. The Official Solicitor would also have got his own independent expert evidence and, if it agreed with the parents, would have supported them.

Even if the hospital had got an emergency order, it would be for the safest course possible and would be on the basis that it had to be reviewed by the court at the earliest possible opportunity once the parents and OS had time to prepare their cases.

There are plenty of documented cases where hospitals haven't succeeded in getting court orders that they've applied for, so it surprises me that the family apparently thought it was better to take their child across Europe than even to get proper advice on the court issue.

What bothers me is that they may have been influenced by scaremongers like John Hemming and Ian Joseph who are probably loving all this; and that their actions may in turn influence other vulnerable parents.

I am sure that incompetent private doctors also exist however they are paid by results and if they are consistently crap privately funded patients will not choose to pay for their services.

It's a little bit like the case with the little boy called Neon whose mother took off with him. And the issue in that case was radiotherapy too. Except the parents in this case seem a bit more clued up and are not by any means proposing a snake oil type treatment.

Wasn't that a case where the father supported the hospital's treatment plan but the mother took the child away to avoid it? So far as I remember the father won and I saw a report recently to the effect that the child is now well and about to go back to school.

He went into great detail about why he didn't want to do what the doctor was saying they would do. And said he couldn't question it because he was scared of having his son removed from his care and being alone.

That's where I didn't understand him. No child would ever be removed from a parent's care solely because the parent questioned his treatment, and i don't understand why the father could possibly think otherwise. I realise that some parents in this situation will accept what the doctors say, but (a) there's no evidence that the doctors did say it and (b) this is a father who is telling us that he wasn't accepting what doctors told him without checking.

Well at some point communication has broken down between the parents and the boys drs, if they did start mentioning court orders etc then I am not surprised the parents panicked.

I had a registrar threaten to report me to social services as I wanted to leave hospital straight from the delivery suite with newborn dd. Midwives were happy for me to but I needed a Dr to sign me off due to medication I was taking. Medication I had taken all the way through pregnancy and was fine in preg and bfeeding (v low dose 10mg of anti depressant) it is one commonly taken during preg and bfeeding but the registrar got a complete bee in his bonnet about it and wanted me to stay and see a consultant (even though said consultant had already signed and okayed the meds in my notes). It was a Sunday afternoon and consultant was not available.

I said I would just go as midwives were happy and I was etc and he Saud if I did he would call child protective services (ironic as dp works in children's services).

Given I was tired and hormonal etc I stayed in, the consultant then came in early the next day to discharge me after a midwife called and filled her in. The consultant was furious at my treatment and urged me to report to pals etc.

So Drs can and do make dubious claims and 'threats'.

Maybe it is a case of miscommunication but the press's reporting and scare mongering re the feeding machine etc is shitty.

Wet you're very naive if you think like that. I know two people who had relatives who died because of terrible private health care. My own mum had an OP in a private hospital and her care was disgraceful. Yes there are many people who had bad care in an NHS hosp but dont kid yourself that it doesnt go on in the private sector.

I'd never get treated in a private hospital. They often don't have the man power or equipment of a NHS hospital.

TV news reports sound like the police are throwing the Dr's under the bus, implying they were mislead "lead to believe the child was in grave danger".

If the hospital are capable of attempting to manipulate the pubic with half truths about NG feeds it makes me think they are capable of trying to manipulate parents with half truths about court orders

And THAT is where they lost me. As soon as they started making stuff up. How am I supposed to trust what they say now? They have already proved themselves to be less than honest

Agree.

Fantastic interviewing by BBC and the police.

Hospital statement:

"Throughout Ashya's admission we have had conversations about the treatment options available to him and we had offered the family access to a second opinion, as well as assistance with organising treatment abroad,"

This is all awful. I can't believe a family in this situation were threatened with emergency care proceedings if this was actually a legitimate debate about treatment. That is an appalling abuse of state powers to intervene in family life and will simply terrify more people into doing something potentially very stupid in the future.

What a truly terrible account this has proved to be. Like so many of you I have been puzzled about the reporting of this case from the outset. So many aspects have been baffling from both the medical point of view and the lack of logic throughout.
This has been a lesson in jumping to conclusions before hearing the full story, of making judgements without all the facts and - most frighteningly - being manipulated into showing religious prejudice of the most ignorant kind.
We call ourselves a "Christian" nation but are we really?
We are, however, parents who love our own children - and cannot imagine the plight of these poor people who evidently love theirs.
Without doubt, the picture will be added to in the coming hours and days. But I for one feel chastened by my own thoughts and judgements - and will never trust the press again.

I work in the NHS and sadly think the father's version of this is pretty accurate. The hospital are backtracking and no doubt their notes will portray a different version of events.

I have seen Drs say one thing to a patient and write another in the notes. In a court the notes would be evidence and the hearsay version would be dismissed. In terms of impact upon a patient the hearsay version is the important one though. Communication is 75% of care (if not more) in a hospital. The hospital have IMO failed here because the family have not been communicated with well.

The portrayal in the media of a child about to die through parental neglect, suggestions that religion was the cause of their neglect and inferences about court orders are evidence to me of the manipulative lengths that hospital would go to.

How much longer does this little boy have to wait before he can be with his parents again, it's barbaric FFS. Irrespective of anything else, that is wrong.

That is what the BBC were getting at, how can it be in the best interests of the child to be kept away from family in a strange hospital, a language he can't speak, no medical records and his parents have not broken any law.

I agree Latte, I just don't understand why letting his parents be with him isn't made a priority, no matter what else has to go on alongside it. I am presuming there is no evidence of abuse or the Ashya being uncomfortable with his parents. Neither of those seem to be the case, and so it is distressing that people aren't prioritising a little boy's need to have his parents near him, especially now . Surely they can't bring them back to the Uk and leave Ashya in Spain?

" I can't believe a family in this situation were threatened with emergency care proceedings if this was actually a legitimate debate about treatment"

I can't either.

But I don't understand why this child and his parents are still being kept apart.

I can believe it, but then I've seen it happen.

I suspect that the truth is that at some point when they were having a discussion about the options, the family asked what would happen if they refused treatment and someone told them that the hospital might consider getting a court order. What I can't understand is why, if that is the case, the family then ran rather than taking legal advice.