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.

The media were urged to report this case because, the police said, Ashya's life was in danger.

Were it not for the publicity generated by traditional and social media, it is very possible Ashya's parents would have been kept in prison and deported to the UK - something that would have been disastrous and horrendously cruel for an extremely ill child. There would have been no pressure on UK prosecutors to reassess and see whether any crime had been committed at all, let alone a serious crime requiring extradition and depriving a seriously ill child of his parents.

Were it not for the fact that he has a bother who is an adult, he would have been separated from his family entirely. And even that brother was not allowed to see him for several days.

I don't think it's reasonable to swing round and start painting the media as villains. They were required to help and told it was a matter of life and death. They then realised there was more to the story and helped to protect Ashya from losing his parents.

The hospital is, as Spero says, responsible for not maintaining a good relationship with Ashya's parents. For creating the fear that they were to be separated from their child - which is indeed what happened, fortunately temporarily.

It is entirely possible that Ashya's parents are wrong about proton beam therapy. Lots of vulnerable people are persuaded to go abroad for expensive treatment that is useless or damaging - a few years ago lots of people with MS were shelling out thousands for unproven 'stem cell therapy' in Germany IIRC. But the hospital clearly made a terrible mistake in allowing the relationship with his parents to break down. From what his father says, by threatening them with court proceedings.

Just how bad was the relationship between the parents and the hospital that the hospital were apparently so ignorant of what the parents could or couldn't do to keep their child alive? The parents were clearly perfectly capable. Their child came to no home whatsoever on the journey to Spain and was moved out of the HDU in Malaga very quickly

But why on earth would the hospital have had a discussion with the parents about how they might sustain the child during the drive to Spain if the parents didn't tell them what they were planning to do? They might have discussed how the parents could care for him, but that would have been at home, with easy access to medical advice and facilities. How was the hospital to know whether they had got food packs for the machine, something to connect it to a power source in the car, the means to clean the equipment, etc?

It does seem to have been a matter of luck that he came to no harm. What would have happened if the tube became dislodged, if he had started choking due to his lack of a gag reflex, or had developed an infection during the journey? It's not that easy to get a child to an appropriately specialised doctor or hospital when you're driving hundreds of miles through France and Spain.

They got him to Spain unharmed. So either they were perfectly capable, or the hospital have exaggerated the risk to him.

I suspect its both.

Spero - your suspicions don't tally with the ruling in the link.

But, Spero, I repeat: how on earth was the hospital to know that they were "perfectly capable"? And indeed, how do you know there wasn't a major element of luck in the fact that they got him to Spain unharmed? What on earth were they going to do if his tube needed to be replaced, or if he choked, or got an infection when they were in the middle of the French countryside?

It seems to me that none of us can look beyond Judge Baker. He saw all the evidence, and makes no criticism of the hospital at all.

Who released the information about their religion?

Veritata - The hospital were meant to know using psychic powers. Obviously.

Line Runner that came from the media not any official statements. It wouldn't be to hard to find out once the press started sniffing around. If people are practicing members of a religion, it's usually widely known to those around them.

I don't want to look beyond the judgment, I accept the rule of law and that his judgment stands unless appealed.

But I still think it's pretty poor of a hospital to release misleading information about batteries on feeding packs running out,which clearly spurred the police into action.

I also think it's pretty poor to claim the hospital could have 'no idea' how the parents could have coped with their child. There would have been copious observations, copious notes, many discussions. The hospital should have had a pretty clear idea about how the parents were coping and what they could handle.

Obviously they can't judge the parents on medical procedures they hadn't performed, but I think it would take more than just luck to get a seriously ill child safely across Europe - unless you knew what you were doing or he wasn't actually at that much risk.

IPity - do you know that for sure? It is entirely possible the police told journalists the parents were JWs in order to make it seem more urgent, i.e. giving the misleading impression they might be opposed to treatment

Spero - they took the feeding machine without the extension cable. The machine does have a limited battery life without a mains power supply. I know these machines, this is fact.

The hospital, again not having psychic powers, went with the facts they knew, that the machine was without an extension cable, therefore the battery only had limited life.

The hospital were not to know the parents had bought another machine and an extension cable, were they?

Spero - it's one thing to be doing something (we have no idea what care the parents did do in hospital, btw) in a hospital environment, another without that support. If he had aspirated his feed, they had no portable suction on hand, he would've died. I would say it's more a case that nothing went wrong,

The ruling quotes an intensivist stating that Ashya arriving in Spain was "luck", do you really think he was just being a bit of a drama queen?

Edam - the story was huge. The gutter and not-so gutter press would be sniffing around (Facebook, employment history, neighbours,etc), for every juicy titbit they could get. They would not just be sitting around waiting for the hospital to make statements or communicate with them.

Parents have given interview:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2772897/EXCLUSIVE-Cancer-doctor-treating-Ashya-King-told-parents-treatment-available-NHS-leave-disabilities-rest-life.html

Basically they say that the doctors only cared about keeping their son alive, regardless of whether he would have very severe disabilities.