to all GN's living in France 4 year old boy missing

Sorry Jingl, I was agreeing with you. I didn't mean to sound disparaging.

It seems that the Spanish lawyer acting for the parents is to try and sue S'ton hospital - for what? Being the bearer of bad news? Making clinical judgements that were hard to swallow? Seeking to safeguard a child who had left hospital apparently without the equipment necessary to sustain his life? What purpose will be served by suing them? - a fine that drains the NHS of more cash?

We do not need a blaming scenario here with lawyers raking in cash, but a genuine attempt to deal with this situation with humanity and a recognition that all parties have acted in good faith.

Possibly the lawyer feels there is a case against Southampton Hosp. as they refused to forward the MRI scan to the Spanish hospital.

Oh yes the lawyers must be dancing all the way to the bank,,,,,

Just get the family back together and allow them to get on with their lives, I notice it does not seem to be top of the BBC news reports anymore, perhaps if the media let it die down a bit rationality can be restored.

Good, balanced article by Dr Max Pemberton in the Daily Telegraph

I agree !!

The news this morning said that the case is being 'urgently' looked at again with a view to dropping the charges - that, no doubt, has come about because of media attention.

I hope they do sue Southampton Hospital - at the very least for obstruction, pain and suffering. If they go unpunished, what's to stop them doing it again? Wouldn't that be stating that they were within their rights to act the way they did?

They had no right to put that family through the anguish they have gone through; they were already going through enough.

janeainsworth I did not find the article balanced at all. Written by a member of the medical profession it suggests that parents undergoing the strain of dealing with a child with cancer become irrational and angry, often directing this unfairly at the blameless medics who are treating their child.

I'd like to see just one medical professional breaking ranks.

I also hope that the family do sue the hospital, even if it does mean a few lawyers making money out of it.

The family have been caused pain and suffering for no good reason and that should not just be brushed under the carpet.

It is a good article but it still implies that doctors always know best and that nothing ever goes wrong or poor decisons are never made that have an adverse effect on patients.

A surge in the number of claims made by NHS patients or their families led to the health service paying out £1.2 billion for its clinical negligence compensation bill between 2011 and 2012.

In its 2013/14 budget the NHS has set aside a whopping £22.7 billion to cover Medical Negligence liabilities.

That article is patronising in the extreme! "it is right for the police to act for the sake of the parents themselves."

Oh, is that what they're doing? Nothing to with "We got it wrong but we're not admitting it now"?

(Sorry for misreading the tone of your previous post ja)

Thank you for posting that article jane - it is exactly what I have been attempting to say all along and he expresses it much better than I can.

petallus - most of my career has been spent working in hospitals, and, take my word for it, the sort of irrationality that is being described is exactly what can happen in these extreme situations - doctors are dealing with this all the time and it is a minefield for everyone. The families are grieving and irrational anger is a common response to this. This is not to denigrate these people as "mad", but to recognise the normal human responses that follow from such extreme stressors.

The implication about "breaking ranks" is that the doctors are engaged in some sort of conspiracy. Of course they are not; there is no earthly reason to think that. They are trying to do the best they can in an impossible impasse.

We live in a blame culture, and, rather than seeing the situation for what it is and all parties acting in good faith from their standpoint, we are being encouraged to look for someone to blame. That is not a good way forward.

Holly - there is nothing to "punish" the hospital for - they have acted properly throughout as far as one can tell on the information released.

The media are whipping people up into a blame frenzy and encouraging them to take sides - it is unedifying and pointless.

I should have added that my post 09:50 - that equates to one quarter of the budget for the NHS is ringfenced to fight claims of medical negligence and payouts on those claims.

Mishap, you say it is unedifying and pointless" (media attention).

I think you are wrong. If anything needs the force of media coverage behind it, this does.

Holly - there is nothing to "punish" the hospital for - they have acted properly throughout as far as one can tell on the information released.

How can the hospital have acted properly when the parents did not break any law?

The implication about "breaking ranks" is that the doctors are engaged in some sort of conspiracy. Of course they are not;

Doctors do cover each others backs when a problem arises - I know because I've been caught up in one such incident (I could have sued but chose not to).

Mishap of course I realise that sometimes parents, under tremendous strain, blame doctors irrationally but this does not satisfactorily explain every case.

I worked in a hospital myself for a while and I saw nurses covering for a doctor who had nipped out to the Bank in the middle of his clinic, keeping patients waiting for ages, a surgeon who cancelled his operating list one afternoon at short notice because he wanted to meet his mistress and other things I don't have the time to go into. So I am not naïve about what goes on in hospitals.

It seems obvious that in the case we are discussing, the relationship between parents and consultants had completely broken down. However, the parents seem to me to be behaving in a rational manner and the behaviour of the consultants leaves a lot of be desired.

I would like to see a case brought against the hospital so that more of the facts can come to light. Bad practice in such an important profession needs to be rooted out where possible.

It is the way that the media are encouraging blame that is unedifying and pointless.

The hospital have acted properly - they reported that a child with a life-threatening illness had left hospital against medical advice and was at risk of dying if his feeding machine failed. The subsequent actions were out of their hands. They have not accused the family of breaking the law; they have just informed the right authorities of the possibility of risk to the child out of the hospital setting.

Doctors do indeed cover their backs (as do other professions) when negligence is alleged - but there is no negligence, no case to answer here. They have given proper treatment (surgery etc.) and subsequent advice to the parents, and then taken steps to safeguard the child when he left hospital. All right and proper.

We must stop finding people to blame and try and approach this with some thought for ALL the parties involved, who have all acted in good faith. Walking in the shoes of each party and thinking how we might have dealt with it ourselves, with all it's subtleties and pitfalls, would seem a good way forward.

I usually find Max Pemberton's articles full of compassion and good old fashioned common sense but not today. I read his article this morning and it is worth reading the comments from his readers. They overwhelmingly don't agree with him. Doctors are only human. Some are pompous, authoritarian, lacking any empathy. Some are not. Some are known for their tendency to close ranks and protect each other. Hopefully Max Pemberton will read the comments and feedback from his readers.

Agree with jings. I think the media have been taken by surprise by the reaction of the general public. Social media in this case have been the family's friend. If they had not used it to represent their predicament we would only have heard the official view. Namely a Jehovah Witness family take child out of hospital with feeding tube which will stop working by Friday night. The child is in danger.
The family started to question the treatment their son was being offered. That, sadly, can still be a brave thing to do.

Had a look at the comments in response to MP's article and felt quite heartened.

Copied and pasted, just one of the thoughtful responses to Max Pemberton's article.

As a Cleric with experience of hospital/hospice chaplaincy work I have found in my experience that the examples you give of parents who reject and withdraw from their child are the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, many, like the parents of Ashya are heroic in their fortitude.

Quite often, during long-term chronic illnesses requiring hospitalisation it is often the parents who have to 'superivise' nurses, junior doctors and the occasional consultant who don't know the child's requirements nearly as well as the parents do.

Example: A child who is nil by mouth for a very good reason being fed whilst the parents have taken a coffee break. Then upon reporting the mistake to the ward sister find that the staff nurse at fault takes umbrage and suddenly the trust is gone and an already intolerable situation becomes desperate.

Example: A neonate who after surgery to correct a congenital bowel defect is given an anti-biotic as a prophylaxis just in case of infection. Days later the child is fitting and pyrexic. The baby is on a surgical ward, looked after by surgical doctors rather than clinical doctors. Mum and dad know something is wrong and urge the doctor(s) to get the clinical team to take a look at baby. The surgical doctor refuses because clearly he knows best. He's going to give baby an anti-biotic, broad-spectrum, covers all bases he tells them. What he doesn't tell them is that he's administered the exact same anti-biotic that was given as a prophylaxis days before. So the gram negative organism that was resistant to the first dose is equally resistant to the second and baby ends up with septicemia and the bacteria grows exponentially and quickly crosses the blood/brain barrier and causes meningitis. That child now has severe learning difficulties and cerebral palsy and a £4.6 million pound damages award to put him in a position that he would have been in 'but for' the negligence, crass stupidity and ego of a surgeon too proud and tribal to call on the expertise of a clinical colleague.

I could go on and on.. Suffice to say doctors are tribal, egotistical, fallible, arrogant and do not listen to parents nearly as much as they ought to, especially when they are called out on the merits of their clinical judgments.

Doctors will often cite their objective expertise as the reason why the are 'right'. However, it is often their Achilles Heal when combined with pride and ego. Then objectivity goes out the window. Compassion goes out the window.

Com-passion.. From the Latin meaning, 'to suffer with'. It is a movement of the heart and it is what gives parents, who do sometimes know better, the courage to question doctors who aren't nearly as infallible as they might wish to believe.

So, Dr Pemberton, as eloquent as your exposition is, it falls down, because you have allowed the objective truth to be colored by your own professional tribalism.
No amount of eloquence can hide the truth that you are merely protecting your own and trying to justify a clear injustice by inferring that the King family are on a par with those who in desperation and fragility fail to stay the course. On the contrary, they seem pretty on the ball and determined to give their son every chance. If, as they say, the physician involved threatened to seek an Emergency Protection Order if they continued to question Asher's treatment, then it is a direct consequence of that misuse of statutory power that has led to a young child being left on his own in a foreign hospital whilst his frantic parents languish in jail.

As a clinician you know these mistakes happen on a daily basis. Why else do we have such an adversarial quango as the NHSLA which fights tooth and nail to reject the negligence and incompetence of NHS health professionals, thus preventing justice for thousands and compounding the hurt caused? My answer is because the NHS, as an institution, operates on the 'Ciaphas Principle'. Better that one man should suffer than the whole institution perish.

Before you hastily tarnish the reputation of these parents by your unjust inferences, at least have the honestly to acknowledge the failings and limitations of your own profession.

Clegg and others have now made statements urging the legal process to be dropped immediately.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/02/ashya-king-clegg-criticises-full-force-law

Also, it has been mentioned by several sources that the mechanical feed can be done manually in the event of the battery failing, so to claim that Ashya's feeding machine needed expert administration was not relevant. These machines do block and need flushing and the setting needs altering when the food is going through at the wrong speed, but many family members get shown how to do this, mechanically and manually. My BIL taught the nurses visiting my poorly sister to do it, over the course of six months, as they were all waiting for training.

penguinpaperback

I thought I heard last night that the CPS were urgently reconsidering the case. They must surely realise that they acted in unnecessary haste.