The little boy taken to Spain

drew said:

It's not a case of 'Come to Prague and we will cure you'. He still needs to be assessed there as to whether he is suitable.

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drew said:

I think we agree that putting them in prison was over the top. You say the child wasn't in danger. Did you know that when the story first broke on Friday? Did the hospital know he wasn't in danger? The Daily Echo on Friday stated that his the battery on his feeding machine would run down 'and that the hospital didn't know if the family had any spares or knew how to charge it. Surely that is cause for concern.

A statement referred to by the Echo on Friday stated 'When the length of time he had been absent became a cause of concern to staff yesterday afternoon they contacted police after a search of the site and attempts to contact the family were unsuccessful.' That would suggest, contrary to your earlier post that they did try and get hold of the family!!!


The main point I am trying to make is that there is a lot of guess work and untruths by a lot of posters who only want to see one side of the argument.

Your last sentence beggars belief. In this day and age of child abuse and neglect, you honestly don't think that parents need to demonstrate they are doing nothing wrong when they have taken a seriously ill child from a specialist hospital against medical advice and with no apparent strategy other than that they will sell a house in Spain to hopefully fund some treatment in Prague. How long to sell a property in Spain?

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Billy the Fish said:

This whole problem stems from assuming the specialist hospital over here is infallable and only their opinion counts. Why is getting a 2nd opinion at a different cancer specialist considered a problem?

The battery argument has been proved to be a lie. The kid isn't in intensive care, he's just on a feeding machine.

Nobody can know the details of payment, perhaps there's a perfectly viable plan in place. It isn't a reason for refusing the right to try something different.

It's not like they're proposing accupuncture or homeopathy, to reiterate it's a different specialist cancer unit with newer technology.

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drew said:

Easy to say when you have only heard one side of the story and the hospital cannot really respond without breaking patient confidentiality.



Suggest you read up as well. Proton treatment is not available here yet but the NHS send plenty of people abroad for that treatment.



Tend to agree with this until we get to hear both sides of the story.



The parents do want radiotherapy, it is just an advanced form called proton therapy!


If he felt he wasn't getting anywhere with those particular doctors then why didn't he seek legal advice?

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drew said:

Firstly, I'm not sure anyone has said the hospital, or any hospital for that matter, is infallible and no one has said, as far as I'm aware, the family couldn't get a second opinion other than perhaps the family themselves! It wouldn't make sense for any consultant/doctor to not allow a second opinion as they would leave themselves open to litigation. As for the battery argument, why was it a lie? On the Friday the story broke, the statement in the Southampton local paper clearly states that the battery on the feeding machine would run down and that the hospital didn't know if the family had any spares or knew how to charge it . Maybe if the family had told the hospital they had bought spare leads to charge the unit and also had supplies of the food the response might have been slightly different.

There are plenty of examples where people who have have been turned down for treatment have sourced it themselves, sometimes through fundraising or maybe even selling another home but they haven't disappeared in the process. What would have been far better is for the family to escalate their issues with consultants via the hospital and/or employ a solicitor to explore every avenue. They have an MP they could approach even contact the local press to highlight the issue but to take their child and not communicate means they have, to a large extent brought a lot of the attention on themselves.

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Justice said:

Work for the NHS by any chance?

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drew said:

Firstly, I'm not sure anyone has said the hospital, or any hospital for that matter, is infallible and no one has said, as far as I'm aware, the family couldn't get a second opinion other than perhaps the family themselves! It wouldn't make sense for any consultant/doctor to not allow a second opinion as they would leave themselves open to litigation. As for the battery argument, why was it a lie? On the Friday the story broke, the statement in the Southampton local paper clearly states that the battery on the feeding machine would run down and that the hospital didn't know if the family had any spares or knew how to charge it . Maybe if the family had told the hospital they had bought spare leads to charge the unit and also had supplies of the food the response might have been slightly different.

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drew said:

There are plenty of examples where people who have have been turned down for treatment have sourced it themselves, sometimes through fundraising or maybe even selling another home but they haven't disappeared in the process. What would have been far better is for the family to escalate their issues with consultants via the hospital and/or employ a solicitor to explore every avenue. They have an MP they could approach even contact the local press to highlight the issue but to take their child and not communicate means they have, to a large extent brought a lot of the attention on themselves.

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drew said:

I am also a father so can understand that the family want the best for their child I just don't accept, on the information in the public domain, that they went about it the right way.

I get the impression that a lot of those posting (not all but a lot) do so on the basis of having seen a sensationalist headline or tv report and don't bother to investigate a little further. They also fail to grasp the concept that, to a very large degree, the hospital are gagged by patient confidentiality. Still, what else could you expect from a football forum!

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gordonchas said:

So they didn't go about it "the right way"?

What is the right way? Is being threatened with having your child made the subject of an emergency protection order if you continue to question the hospital's treatment plan the right way?

The sensationalist headlines on Friday all took the side of the hospital and the police. That has now changed since the family themselves have been able to get their side of the story out, something they would have prevented from doing had the hospital carried out its threat to go to the secretive, unreportable, so-called Family Court.

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Billy the Fish said:

I can see in the video that it's plugged in. The bloke seems of reasonable intelligence, I'm sure he knows how to plug something in. I grew up with a close family member that unfortuately died from a terminal illness, they had a similar machine and they're a piece of piss to use and change the food packs. I just don't buy the excuse, the parents probably would've operated it on the ward if they were spending quite a bit of time there. Change the bag, turn it on, set it to the right speed - that's it. When was the video of the family posted on the web? I may be wrong but I believe it was after the warrant was obtained



The NHS doesn't really work like that. Having experienced it through said family member, not directly because I was too young at the time to really get involved, but I know what other members of my family had to do to get a proper diagnosis in the first instance, and subsequently get proper treatment. They had to beg, cheat, write letters, make phone calls, do their own research, sidestep certain consultants etc. It's because you come up against so many brick walls (consultants are a common one, how you fit in their budget is another) that if you don't take your own initiative you can just get left to rot. They're only human and they don't know everything about everything, no matter how qualified they are. You also have to remember that you're just one of a long conveyer of people they see so you really do have to look out for yourself and ask questions. I bet there's loads of people on here with similar experiences, it just how it works.

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