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.

"And, would you really like children to be removed from hospital and go missing without anyone checking that all is well?"

IPity I'm not sure how that sensible statement leads to a European manhunt with warrants for parents arrest? That's not checking all is well!

I hope the hospital learns some lessons from this but I suspect they won't. They'll pretend it was a justifiable and proportional reaction and 'they were worried about the little child' etc.

Doesn't matter how much they whitewash their motives though, this was about power and authority and retribution to bring the parents back into line. Self righteous anger and a god-like sense of power is not an acceptable motivation.

MrsDV do you think it's common to give an optimistic prognosis? My own experience was very different when my DD was diagnosed with a brain tumour at age 4, they were very open with us, and pulled no punches. It would be sickening to think that in this case the information given is being manipulated to further an agenda.

I think in terms of the hospital's actions I would separate the issue of highlighting a concern for child from the misleading info that emerged which has set the "manhunt" (for want of a better word) into motion.

I worry that this whole case might discourage people not to report concerns they may have about other children or vulnerable adults and we are all probably aware of some of the terrible cases where children have been severely let down by the system. The King's case is more unusual In that it's been high profile for what actions have been taken and not as in other cases, what authorities failed to do. I know I've read threads here where parents have been investigated for what turned out to be unfounded concerns so it's not a perfect or failsafe system by any means but it's all the services have to work with at the moment.

Personally i still think that that initial communication higher up the tree between the hospital or social services and the police is where it first all went wrong and that's the area to investigate.

70-80% is the 5 year survival rate for average risk medulloblastoma in children. That's likely to be a fairly accurate piece of information and would fit with the information given by Asha's father in the you tube video.

MrsDV I've seen you around, I'm so sorry your DD died.

The chap from the hospital was just on again saying good chance of cure. Not terminal and 4 months to live. It makes a huge difference to the relevance of the effects of standard radiotherapy.

Sadly, statistics are just that. Even with a much much higher survival rate there are no guarantees.

Even without the massive mess that seems to have surrounded this case his parents are in a horrendous position, having to make decisions about his treatment and care. I cannot even begin to contemplate what they must be going through right now.

I'm very sorry for your loss MrsDV

Mrs DV It's a huge leap from "seems capable" to knowing for certain the family have all the necessary equipment.

Can you imagine if harm did come to Ashya and the hospital said "Oh the parents seemed reasonable, we were sure it would all be fine". The hospital would be massively criticised and rightly so.

Taking him for a walk in hospital grounds where help is quickly on hand, is not the same as having long periods unsupervised with him and is definitely not the same as driving him for hundreds of miles across Europe.

How the parents seemed is not evidence at hand. I'm pretty sure they didn't seem like they were going to take him from the hospital either.

I think you're being very dismissive of NGT care too.

And I would strongly suspect that it would need to be documented evidence too, which might also be a factor in the whole sorry mess.

I don't think the hospital's statement made them look untrustworthy, particularly not when faced with parents who had taken such extreme action. They wanted Ashya to be found quickly and he was.

How the British and Spanish police acted is another matter and one which is completely out of the jurisdiction of the hospital.

And this is the crux of the whole issue - when professionals dismiss the rights and ability of parents to know and care appropriately for their child because they disagree with a parent's views! Professional arrogance dictates! This poor family have faced the consequences of this unrestrained arrogance -'if you try to do something we disapprove of (ie alternative medical treatment) we will remove your parental responsibility even though you are patently obviously fit, caring, loving and responsible parents.
I, like so many on this thread and reported elsewhere, have direct experience of medical consultants deciding that they knew best and treating a patient in direct contradiction of their wishes. It took a High Court case and a fine for assault before they were finally forced comply with the patient's legal right to refuse this particular treatment.
That is why so many people quite rightly do not believe or trust this profession when they demand our uncritical support. It seems that they have lied their way through this, attempted to trash the parents' reputations and are still demanding that only their views are the correct views, The casualty as always has been the child and his family.

How the British and Spanish police acted is another matter and one which is completely out of the jurisdiction of the hospital

Erm, no, the action taken was on the basis of the hospital giving misleading information surely.

IPity - I disagree - the actions of the hospital make them look extremely untrustworthy in my eyes - for all the reasons that other posters have very patiently explained upthread.
The medical profession is unused to being challenged, has little experience of 'working in partnership'. Senior medics demand uncritical approval. I have my own sad experiences of watching them attempt to trash a patient's reputation and have them deemed mentally incompetent in court by citing childhood abuse in order to defend their totally illegal treatment of the patient. The Judge found the patient totally competent and awarded costs against the hospital for assault. All the legal advice to the hospital was that the patient had the legal right to say no to treatment but they insisted that she didn't, they knew better, and it took a court case to MAKE them comply with the law! So I was not surprised to see that this hospital was quite happy to escalate the situation in such an unprofessional way and with such huge costs to the family - it's what some medics do if they are crossed!

Agree wholeheartedly with MrsdeVere and Sar1ne

Me too. The NHS is brilliant but they need to curtail the power of those at the top. The huge salary difference between consultants and nurses sums it up for me. I would trust a nurse over a consultant any day.

I wouldn't unrealhousewife, you get weirdo's in all jobs be it Nurse/Dr, what I will agree with you is that they are more likely in the higher up positions. From what I understand is that there is a very high proportion of the population with NPH/Antisocial personality types in management positions.

Re. arrogant docs - I even know one who sued his patient. Usually the other way round...

Mrs DV,

I am sorry to here about your DD. I have great respect for all mums who show amazing ability not only to look after but also see problems with seriously ill/disabled children in their care, problems not apparent to medical staff, and NOT even to the nursing staff. I put NOT in capitals as I was often asked to review a child who "was not handling right" and mum or nurse were usually right.

^How on earth do you think thousands of parents cope with NG feeding? Parents from different backgrounds, with different capabilities and stresses? The hospital made it sound as if NG feeding was only to be done by medics.

Some parents also re insert them. I chose not to. My DD wanted sedation when her's was changed and I felt that was reasonable given what she had to endure.^

Your DD retained a gag reflex. Ashya (allegedly) does not:

"Ashya has no gag reflex and the family are not trained to deal with the (potentially serious) complications of choking"

www.uhs.nhs.uk/AboutTheTrust/Newsandpublications/Latestnews/2014/Latest-statement-in-relation-to-Ashya-King,-2-September-2014.aspx

I am in the minority with IPTP

Drat sea , I do feel the hospital had no choice but to find him and I think in the absence of information things escalated.
I'm in that minority with you.

The Prague hospital has said it is going to do whole brain irradiation and chemotherapy. Isn't that what the Southampton Hospital planned to start last week?

Yes. I believe it is. I think that's usual for medulloblastoma because of the nature of the tumour, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure that there's any real advantage of proton over photon in this scenario.