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

I want to know exactly on what grounds this Ward of Court order has been made.

We are not being enough information.

jingl I think it is a temporary Wardship Order so let's hope common sense prevails and it doesn't become a full Wardship Order. I remember working with children who were made Wards of Court before the 1989 Children Act and it was a horrible, secretive way to undermine parental rights/ responsibility. Not only that but every decision was delayed by the requirement to go to Court every time. Not a very appropriate way to respond to the needs of a very sick child.

The whole family are not being allowed to see him now. WHY?!!!

A Czech hospital is ready and waiting to give him the treatment. But they need the OK from the UK hospital. Is there a reason why this is not being given? We need to know!

They are only willing if he is a suitable case. Not all brain tumpors respond to photon beam and I suspect his is the kind that doesn't.
Besides, it wouldn't reverse his condition

"I know that side effects for the proton beam therapy are less and he would have more or less a normal life if he received that treatment."

This is what Ashya's brother believes - but Ashya has already suffered damage and their hope of a more or less normal life for him is likely to be an understandable but vain hope. It is very sad.

So why doesn't the UK hospital come right out and say that?

Or, if they have no decent alternative, just let him go to the Czech Republic?

Patient confidentiality.
They can't come out and say 'we've told him it's pointless and the Czech's won't do it in his condition but he won't listen' which is what I suspect is the situation

It's a terrible situation! That little boy needs his parents and family with him now - who knows how much time he has left, but we can all imagine how alone and frightened he's feeling.

What's the matter with the Powers that Be? Haven't they any compassion? and

Galen if this family want to go ahead and try the Czech hospital why cannot they be allowed to do so? Either they would be offered the treatment or they would find out that it was not suitable for their child after all.

I am not convinced that the Southampton hospital acted with compassion. There was no need for them to take such a paternalistic (even authoritarian) attitude.

I've just watched the nine o'clock Sky News. The Czech hospital are ready to give Ashya treatment as soon as possible. They are not asking for money before commencing treatment. If, as I understand, the UK hospital were going to offer brain radiotherapy surely there is nothing to stop him having the proton beam therapy instead? Yes if he is already brain damaged this cannot be reversed this but it seems the beam therapy is more targeted and therefore kinder than conventional radiotherapy which undoubtably would cause even more brain damage. I have no medical expertise but have stage 4 breast cancer and know one of the areas breast cancer can spread to is the brain. Friends who have have spread to brain have done their upmost to have targeted cyber knife over conventional radiotherapy whenever possible. Late friends who had the usual radiotherapy were much changed after their treatment. A friend who had targeted cyber knife instead still died but lived, well, for another 2 years. The morning she had her treatment she was out shopping in the afternoon. The parents sound realstic, they are not expecting miracle cures but are trying for a better quality, however long that may be, of life for their son.

It's probably some sort of unwritten code hospitals have. Perhaps they can't just take on someone else's patient without a referral? Sounds like the UK hospital is just being stubborn.

Good post penguinpaperback

penguinpaperback

Thank you petallus and jings. durhamjen posted a few pages back, The Guardian link to Ashya's father talking of why they wanted the beam therapy. Conventional radio can take so much of a person away. If something kinder is possible it seems, to me, a much better option.

I gather the Czech hospital have'nt received his records and MRI scans, without which they cannot say whether the treatment would be suitable.The proton beam will not help if there are bits of tumour spread through the brain, in that case normal radiotherapy is more effective.

Thanks for remembering, penguin. My husband had brain cancer. The radiotherapy changes you. His memory went, his speech changed even from the problems he had. His centre of balance changed. He could not walk, but he did not know if he was sitting or lying down. It was a different part of the brain, but the changes were there.
He was being treated in a different part of the hospital next to the Bobby Robson Centre, but we were hoping that they would suggest trials for him. He was too far gone by then, and the machines that they have now were not available then.

I think Ashya's parents should be allowed to do whatever they can to help him, whatever the outcome. The police can still back down if they want to and withdraw the court order.

As penguin says, many people who have cancer can get brain cancer as a secondary. An adult can decide what to do. A child cannot and relies on his family to help. That's what should be allowed to happen here.

It is particularly unfortunate that his parents are being held over 100 miles away - there must surely be somewhere nearer. It is so sad that they are unable to visit their son. What a terrible mess this all is for everyone involved, all of whom seem to have been acting in good faith, but it has just finished up as a total c**k-up.

My father had an operation to remove a brain tumour in Southampton General in 1968. He died six months later as those days were a world away from the treatment available to cancer sufferers now. He was only 50 and I know that if there had been any possible treatment options we would have pursued them.

Succinctly put Mishap

Jingl if hospitals 'just took on' another hospital's patients, as you put it, without a proper referral, ie full notes, images, test results etc, it would mean that the patient, in this case a poor 5 year old who has already suffered greatly, would have to undergo all those distressing diagnostic procedures all over again.

Yes janeainsworth. That is exactly what I was referring to. Of course records etc have to be passed on.

I don't understand your comment. Or the disparaging tone used to make it.

I find this whole case baffling - once they knew the child had his food, etc and that the parents were seeking treatment elsewhere the warrant should have been cancelled

I am also furious that there are childhood cancer treatments available in the EU and USA that we are denied in the UK - my DDs friend just lost her lovely daughter aged 3, they were desperately trying to raise the money tp get her treatment in the USA that she couldn't have here

The family must have been desperate, and felt the risk of a journey was worth taking - and after all , he was in a car with his siblings, not beif made to tramp across the outback, so I doubt it had any more of an impact than being stuck on his own in a foreign hospital without his mummy and daddy,, which is what our wonderful government has done to him

Newsnight had a good report - it seems the CPS issued the warrant on the grounds of suspected 'cruelty to a person under the age of 16'.

It beggars belief.

Of course a hospital should pass on notes on a patient ... how petty.