Charlotte Wyatt to go into foster care

[ginmummy]

...because, according to the news, her seperated parents can't give her the care that she needs. It so sad, I want to cry. Poor, poor Charlotte, poor, poor parents.

I have been following this thread with interest as both my dss were born in the same hospital as Charlotte and ds1 at the same time. Her picture is up in the lobby with all the other 'babies born here' but I know that even when the story was at its height the parents would very rarely visit her. I know they seem inadequate in many ways but the choice of the further children was an odd one to me.

May be different in the past, but Mr Wyatt I would guess is not now unemployed, he is disabled through psychiatric health issues? I also imagine it would have been impossible to hold down a job and do the hospital thing ofr two years with Charlotte in there?

I think the problem I find with kittys post is the state picking up the tab issue, and her apparent refusal tor elaise there's nothing about the life of a SN family that isn't about SN to one extent or another.

He has 7 children, she doesn't, and he didn't have primary carer status afaik for all of those children- they were with theior mother I would presume?

"I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a child in that situation and to be a parent in that position"

That is made abundantly clear by the rest of your posts kitty. I am really shocked by the lack of any empathy in your comments. Perhaps you do think they have made poor decisions, but do you really lack the imagination to put yourself in their shoes for just a moment and feel the compassion that anyone must feel if they do so? You can make your points without being so unfeeling.

So what I'm saying is I wasn't at all suprised she was taken into care. That said, every child in care belongs to us all.

Dino, ds3 was 3 in July.

Oh this argument is always used:

"all the money spent means less to spread out to other families of SN kids who are very deserving"

Please kind person I'd like some speech therapy for my son who can't speak and has been waiting 4 years to be seen.

"hurumph well if we give him speech therapy then another child won't get it".

Oh right.

Please kind person can my son and Joe Bloggs down the road get speech therapy please.

"I can't discuss other children's cases with you"

Dear MP I am writing to you (and the other MP's) on behalf of organisation X (representing parents citywide) concerning the lack of speech and language therapy available in the city.

"I'm not your MP I won't deal with you"

There may be more to the parents' story than we will ever know,but to have a child in hospital long term is very draining (for me it's been 6 months). I feel guilty that I don't spend more time with dd4 but as I said I do have other children and at the end of the day everyone deserves a bit of "normal" life-even if it's mundane things like housework .

have you considered the fact that the pregnancies may have been accidental? my mum feelpregnant twice whilst using the pill.

once they discovered they were pregnant can anyone possibly understand the thought process of ending a pregnancy when you already have one child who could die at any moment??

To me it is perfectly understandable that they would have further children.

I might agree with the sentiment behind 'they made their own bed let them lie in it' if it wasn't for the fact that it isn't them that will be lying in it. It will be the poor child.

It will indeed joelalie, and the other children of course, who also deserve not to be forgotten.

I think if my child were dying, I would probably make extremely poor decisions.

The propblem in these cases is that you only get the parents side of the story. He says he cant bring charlotte home because of the suicide attempt but the fact that he doesn't see his first 2 kids at all by choice and has assualted hospital staff members hint that perhaps there are other reasons he is not suitable to be charlottes carer. Poor Charlotte's quality of life and life expectancy is so poor that she deserves an excellent home for the time she has left. And I do think he quality of life should have been a factor when consider a DNR order. I think that it may have be braver and more comapssionate to have kept her comfortable and pain free with no heroic measures to keep her alive.

In all honesty, we know very little about the Wyatts situation. All we have is media speculation. I don't think they were "in it" for the publicity - as they didn't get very much. I imagine they must have been somewhat bewildered by the whole situation.
I could not in all conscience stand in judgement when I know so little. It took a high court judge to make a decision about Charlotte's life & it was a very difficult decision at that. Who are we to suggest that they should have made better decisions, when we know so little about them?
The tradition of innocent until proven guilty, which stood this country in such good stead - seems to have flown out of the window, with the media making judgements for us on the basis of almost very little verified information.
Grrrrrrrrrrr!

We did an ethics thing at Uni that loosely relates.

Your child is being held by terrorists, MI6 have a member of their gang who won't talk. You can choose: they will torture on your say so, and that will save your childa s they will be able to locate him BUT it will set a precedent for the use of torture and all the horror and abuses that will bring.

Best answer we could find? I would BEG them to save my childa nd would be right to do so, but that I wouldn't be in a sane enough palce to be relied upon for a decision.

Quite why we should expect the Wyatt family to make top notch decisions about their family, themselves, whatever under the stress they were / are under is beyond me. That's why we have the courets, who ultimately amde the decisions here.

jimjams - what is the problem with pointing out the pot is not bottomless, not sure what you meant by your post. I am not being unfeeling by pointing out that if vast sums of public funds are spent on supporting a family like the wyatts than yes it follows that other families will miss out. Very interesting posts from sophiev73 , i can see that they have other children to care for and as another poster said i bet you owuld crave normality at that time but can see why it may appear to outsiders that they were rather self - publiscising and the whole truley devoted to charlotte thing is now looking a little hollow.

Fennel - i am one of 10 children, 9 surviving.

Are my parents irresponsible for having so many of us because one of my brothers has Dyslexia quite severely. my other brother has a very rare lung problem ( it doesnt even have a name) where he finds himself hospitalised frequently.

My youngest sister died at only minutes old because of a congenital heart defect.

my mum suffered severe depression after this, but she went on to have two more children.

The number of children is not a factor as to how well you love and care for your children. I am getting so incredibly offended by much of this thread, for so many different reasons.

Mummydoc - what person could hold a job whilst battling to save his daughter?? i dont think it is beyond comprehension that this family is unemplyed. we have a benefit system that is designed for families like this, who CANNOT work for whatever reason....and quite frankly i think fighting for your child's survival is a pretty good excuse!

Oh and my DS doesn't have a social worker, he has never used respite care and nor do i intend to. I am a single mum and living on benefit. maybe i should have thought about the possibility of my partner beating the hell out of me in front of my children prior to me giving birth???

can someone please do a link to the article, i have used ST to wrap pass the parcel parcel ...

There are lots of things I object to my money (via taxes) being spent on. Unjust war, management consultants in the NHS, identity cards. But sick children and their families????

I have three children, two of whom were unplanned. Once I knew I was pg the only question was, do I have enough love? (Obviously, yes.)

Any of us can find ourselves with a child as profoundly unwell as little Charlotte at any time through illness or accident. The only way to 'plan' for such an eventuality is not to have children. How would I cope? Who knows, we cannot even begin to imagine until it happens to us.

How sad that we live in such a consumer-driven society that life itself now has a cost value, and some lives regarded as not worth the money.

I can't comprehend what Charlotte Wyatt's parents are going through. But I did read today that the mother won't let her other children see charlotte in case she dies (I suppose she doesn't want them getting attached to her?). I was very shocked by that.

This story just seems so sad on all fronts, sad for a relationship that is falling apart,sad for Charlotte, a girl with complex needs, sad for the rest of the Wyatt children, and sad for the support services /health professionals trying to fit in where extra care is needed and probably failing as resources overstretched and underfunded.

Because as a parent the only child you can actually campaign for is your own. Even if you want to campaign for other children you are not allowed to. But if you ask for a service for your child (even a simply one like speech therapy for a child who cannot talk) you are told you are being selfish and that other children will lose out if your child gets access to that service (but you're not allowed to campaign for other children so what are you meant to do).

Charlotte's parents could only advocate for her- for her to receive the best care possible- which is what everyone should receive. The fact that the NHS is an absolute shambles is not an adequate reason for turning off a life support machine (there maybe other ones but cost should not come into it). Considering the cost to other children is not something they should be asked to consider it is irrelevent to their case. It is an argument that has quite literally made me see red before (especially when my attempts to advocatre on behalf of others has not been alllowed- you can't have it both ways).

Cost considerations ($1 cheaper to provide a vacccine with mercury rather than without) contributed to my son losing his chance for independent life. Every decision should be made on the basis of care, not cost.

I'm attempting to set up a social enterprise where profits will be used for parents/carers of autistic children/adults to appply for grants to buy equipment, go on courses, get their children SALT etc. I would love to be able to remove the brick walls for some- give people less painful heads from all the banging they do.

From today's newspapers:

"Charlotte was born three months prematurely, weighing just 1lb and only as long as a ballpoint pen. She has serious brain, lung and kidney damage."

Heartbreaking situation for all involved.

Message withdrawn

battymum - interesting that you seem very empathic towards him but yet you don't get help, also since court order was made and Charloote was going to be resusitated could he not have done some form of job even pt ?
as far as all the talk of forward planning i probably didn't explain my point very well, of course you never expected your partener to beat you, ( I hope not anyway) but hte wyatts knew what they were facing and they chose to go on and have other children . I am sorry if this offends people , don't mean too just find it a fascinating discussion, i hope mumsnetters don't take it as personnel just because posters have differing opinions. the ability to discuss and see other sides to an arguement makes human beings unique .

battymamma no I wasn't trying to say people shouldn't have large families and I'm sorry if it came across that way. I was trying to say (probaly totally failing) that I thought Kitty wasn't making all the points people seemed to be attributing to her.