Charlie Gard 20

[CremeFresh]

Don't know if anyone else has started a new thread .

I think attitudes like that maryz show that too often it is about what is 'best' for the parents rather than what is best for the child

Excuse us barging in, we do realise what a emotive subject this is but we should remind everyone that we will remove any speculation or parent-blaming reported to us if we feel it breaks our talk guidelines.

I would never advocate not questioning Heado. I have never thought doctors are infallible. As with many other professions there are often differences of opinion. However looking at the court papers pertaining to the first case before Judge Francis, even the expert they engaged agreed with GOSH.

Apologies if my posts have fallen into this category.

I was reading the comments on a Daily Mirror article on Fb earlier and CY had commented on it at lunchtime. I do wish she could take herself away from all SM for a while. She doesn't need to see what people are saying because not all of it is supportive.

In a side note, the DUP where not that closely linked with a paramilitary organisation - unlike SF and the IRA. There are a bunch of smaller parties, the PUP etc who are actually spokesman for loyalist organisations.

The DUP are a pretty backward political organisation but their level of intwinement with terrorist groups is less obvious that the others

Oh yes I agree, I was just broadly pointing out that the loyalist parties are less of a household name than the republican ones, partially due to the BBC who have many times implied that the only people causing trouble in NI were republicans

Which they DID in the 80s
By NAMING republican groups when they claimed attacks
And reporting loyalist claimed attacks as "a sectarian group" - which led a lot of people to assume republican!
It was deliberately misleading without actually lying!

I don't see how they could sue..if it's about GOSH acting to late you can't really prove that. That and that's only the information that's been said/published in the media so the truth behind it... Hopefully this route doesn't happen. Won't change anything and wouldn't bring peace surley

Still finding the social media side behind it odd..someone saying they're putting a photo of him in their house..
Then talks about his birthday..I doubt much thought has been given to that!

Ceto, I'll carry on from Dustbunny's info re child rights and the US.

Laws vary from state to state but federal regulations supersede state. In the US each state has a right to self-government with federal law superseding only in certain situations. As a rule the Feds leave the states alone. Good case in point is the states that have legalized weed. It's still federally illegal, but the Feds were told by the DoJ to back off and not conduct raids or arrests in weed-legal states unless there was major cartel trafficking or trafficking into weed-illegal states.

Technically parents have rights and children don't. And the parents have the right to determine medical care (or lack thereof). But that doesn't mean they have carte blanche. The courts can (and will) step in at the request of medical providers and/or social workers. Some times it works the way it should, sometimes it doesn't. The Jahi McMath case is a good example of parent's rights vs medical ethics 'gone wrong'. The hospital won the right to turn life support off, BUT the parent had, and exercised, the right to move the child to another state. But there have been quite a few cases where the courts have taken guardianship over children whose parents have refused life-saving care on religious grounds. One of the core tenets of the Constitution is freedom to practice one's own religion, but the courts have decided that takes second place to the child's rights to life. And parents have been convicted of homicide for denying their children life saving medical care on religious grounds. The Kara Neumann case is an example.

It's a very delicate balance between a parent's right to manage their children's healthcare in a responsible way and the State's responsibility to safeguard the life of every citizen, regardless of their age.

Personally, I'd love to see mandatory immunizations for all children. But that's never going to happen because of 'parents rights'. I wish we'd ratify the UN Children's Rights mandate. But that's never going to happen, either. And that's because of 'State's Rights'.

On another thread someone posted the details of the 3 criteria that would need to be met for their to be a legal case. From the information given by the judge praising how
gOSH had handled things I can't see how it would stand any case and if The family do try to go down that avenue I really hope they recieve some proper legal advice before beginning.

I think realistically a full debrief would be much more important for them (and everyone else) but I can't eee that happening.

Thanks, Across, that's really helpful.

On another thread someone posted the details of the 3 criteria that would need to be met for their to be a legal case.

There has to be a duty of care
and
That duty of care has to have been breached
and
That breach has to have resulted in harm

I don't think there is a case for negligence relating to Charlie
BUT I wonder if it could argued that GOSH also have a duty of care to the parents of children in their care? There might be a case there, I don't think they would win, but I think that that is an angle that could potentially get as far as court?

What do legal bods think?

I saw a post last night on FB to the effect that "by fighting they had got an extra 6 months with their son that the hospital didn't want them to have". It went on to say that other parents could learn from this, that every day with a baby was worthwhile and that other parents should go the court route even if there was no treatment so that they could have more time with their children.

I can't see other parents being able to find pro bono legal help as easily. Even if the legal aid rules are changed as a result of this - as they should be - it's not a blank cheque to pursue hopeless appeals.

I don't see how GOSH could conceivably be said to be in breach of any duty of care to C&C. The Children Act duty to put the child's best interests first would defeat that.

I suppose they might just try some sort of case around failure of communication leading to distress etc, but that sounds pretty unlikely. Unfortunately they were publicly talking about complete cures long after Hirano had made it clear that he wasn't offering that. Likewise, they seemed totally unable to take in the basic principle that children's rights come above parents' wishes, though their own lawyers must have explained it to them. Any court would find that (a) the strong likelihood is that everything was very carefully explained to them many times over; and (b) even if there was any failure, the reality was that they wouldn't have accepted the truth anyway.

I think (non legal bod) that any duty of care to the parents is simply about being supportive of them and allowing them to express their views and have them listened to. Nothing from the court hearings seems to suggest that they didn't happen certainly not at the early stages. By the time it got to court their duty of care towards Charlie had to be the priority.

I don't think it'ld be a "good" case don't get me wrong
I just think it's the only angle they'ld have for any case as GCs treatment has already been through the courts IYKWIM, so legally they might only be able to take a case about their treatment.

I guess the MN warning was for me. Actually I feel there is a case for discussing the rights of a child when that is in conflict with the wishes of the parents. It is not blaming parents. It is disagreeing with parents. If no-one can disagree with a course of action taken or action that is intended then it is very sad and is censorship. We would condemn other parents who have caused suffering to their children so why is this case different? I expect this will be removed shortly!

I suppose we will have to wait and see. I do hope that it does not come to that, mainly because I am concerned for the health of the parents in all this.

Hm, I really don't know about duty of care to parents/relatives of patients unable to speak for themselves. I too would love an opinion of a legally qualified person on that. Good question

In society in generally there seems to be such confusion, fear and lack of understanding about natural death/dying and what medicine can to do defer death, ameliorate suffering or change a disease trajectory.
I think really interesting conversations could be had with great benefit to individuals but also society if we became better at talking about life/death, quality of life vs duration, suffering/merely existing vs living a fulfilled life.

My 84 year old father just had open heart surgery and the lead up to this planned operation generated many interesting conversations and musings - some practical (he updated his will, he made damn sure a DNACPR was in place, he made sure my brother and I knew where relevant documents were should he not be able to look after himself etc etc), some of them more philosophical: what happens when we die? where do we go? what is it that 'goes'? how much suffering would he accept as reasonable for himself for what kind of trade-off?
Yes, there were some tears, his and mine and my mum's, but also laughter and plenty of piss-taking and gallows' humour maybe just our way of dealing with being more than a bit petrified.

Death is a normal part of life. Without death there is no life. Not talking about it or a narrative of 'fighting' death or of 'losing' a fight when dying are not helpful in my opinion.

None of which takes away from the horror of losing a child - I don't think that the phrase 'untimely death' is wrong when a baby dies, whatever the circumstances .

Thanks for the information re the USA AcrossthePond. It is very interesting how laws differ from one country to another. One reason I dislike sm for all its potential for good, it is used to promulgate untruths without responsibility

You can't get legal aid to pursue hopeless appeals even in care proceedings anyway, care proceedings being the closest comparison here.

I agree PacificDogwood. Death is part of life and it is hard to accept at times. We also use euphemisms such as passed away or sleeping instead of died.