Arrested for not breaking any law, but disagreeing on healthcare

[RandBlade]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29009883

Shocking story in the news at the moment about a child, Ashya King, who was taken out of the country by his parents against medical advice to seek a treatment not available in the UK on the NHS - and the parents have been arrested in Spain.

Ashya, 5 years old, has a brain tumour. The parents want as medical treatment "proton beam therapy" that is not available in the UK under the NHS (it will be in a few years time but not currently). The NHS in certain circumstance will pay for it to be done in America but apparently not for Ashya. His parents have taken him out of the hospital against medical advice to Spain where they have a family home which they are selling to privately fund cancer treatment to be done in Prague in the Czech Republic. The council unhappy that the child was pulled out of the hospital against medical advice have got the court to make the child a ward of the state and the parents have been arrested in Spain.

I find it terribly bizarre to see people arrested when no crime has been commited. Furthermore I think the parents ought to be able to make the final decision seek treatment that is medically sound and unavailable in this country. Its not like they're refusing medical treatment altogether and there doesn't seem to be any suggestion that proton beam therapy is unsound medically (not like people relying on prayers or some other nonsense to cure cancer).

[Aimless]

On the face of it, this seems like a gross and unusually misguided abuse of power that i can only imagine is due to pride, embarrassment and butthurt. But who knows

[coinich]

unusually misguided abuse of power

Aren't abuses of power usually misguided?

So they were arrested in Spain, but have not been extradited and charges not pressed? I'm a little confused on jurisdictions here at all. When did the government demand that the patient receive treatment as well?

[Timbuk2]

There's a little more to the story.

The reason for the swift arrest warrant was because the child was rigged up to complex machinery for his continued survival. Being removed from the hospital left the machinery on battery power of limited charge, and the child's life under real threat.

The authorities had no idea what the parents were up to, so the swiftest way to assure the survival of the child was to issue the europe-wide warrant and splash the story across the papers.

Which worked, a worker in the hospital saw the story in the papers in Malaga, called the police, and the family was found in very short order.

It is only now, subsequent to the family being found, that the intentions of the parents has been uncovered - namely the best interests of the child.

Now that all of this has come to light, the warrant needs to be very quickly rescinded - what with the front pages of this morning's papers showing the parents being shoved into the back of a Spanish police car when the child will be without them, very ill, frightened, confused, and in a foreign country.

[Aimless]

Be that as it may, at the heart of this story there seems to be a near-total breakdown of communication and trust

[Timbuk2]

I don't disagree.

A breakdown in communication which has left one big mess.

How the parents managed to remove the child with his life-support equipment from the hospital without anybody raising an alarm is beyond me.

[wiggin]

I haven't seen the kid's charts, but I question whether proton beam therapy would have helped this kid at all. Checking out a kid AMA is a big deal when they have a life threatening condition, and there need to be a justification. Just because the parents read on WebMD that there's a fancy new therapy for 'cancer' called proton beam therapy doesn't mean it's remotely suitable for this child's particular condition. With the caveats that I don't know the situation, I think it conceivable that the parents were very much doing something foolish and life threatening, and judicial intervention is warranted in such a case. That being said, it could just as easily have been an overreaction on the part of the hospital staff. It really depends on the situation, which is far from clear.

[Aimless]

The parents were under the impression that they could not have a dialogue with the treating physicians in this matter because they had been threatened. Re whether or not the treatment is appropriate, well, I'm as great a proponent of rational evidence based therapy as the next guy, but I'm not going to pretend that medical professionals in systerns such as the NHS can, at times, have an overbearing and overzealous approach that may not be appropriate to the case at hand (eg. tricky judgement call, lack of relevant high quality evidence of harm) and that may have a little too much to do with money and prestige.

[Dreadnaught]

This is why I objected to having NHS nurses dancing in the London Olympics.

But truly sad case to have the parents putting their child at such extreme risk.

[Flixy]

This is why I objected to having NHS nurses dancing in the London Olympics.

[Timbuk2]

Well, the warrant was indeed withdrawn and the parents released.

I haven't seen the kid's charts, but I question whether proton beam therapy would have helped this kid at all. Checking out a kid AMA is a big deal when they have a life threatening condition, and there need to be a justification. Just because the parents read on WebMD that there's a fancy new therapy for 'cancer' called proton beam therapy doesn't mean it's remotely suitable for this child's particular condition. With the caveats that I don't know the situation, I think it conceivable that the parents were very much doing something foolish and life threatening, and judicial intervention is warranted in such a case. That being said, it could just as easily have been an overreaction on the part of the hospital staff. It really depends on the situation, which is far from clear.

Ashya was diagnosed with a medulloblastoma, a type of brain tumour, which was successfully removed by surgeons last month.

However, in order to help prevent its return his parents wanted him to be given proton beam therapy - a treatment the NHS does not provide in the UK, but does refer patients to other countries to undergo.

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust had said Ashya's chances of recovery with regular treatment were "very good", but stressed there was "no benefit to him of proton radiotherapy over standard radiotherapy".

Seconded.

[GGT]

I haven't seen the kid's charts, but I question whether proton beam therapy would have helped this kid at all. Checking out a kid AMA is a big deal when they have a life threatening condition, and there need to be a justification. Just because the parents read on WebMD that there's a fancy new therapy for 'cancer' called proton beam therapy doesn't mean it's remotely suitable for this child's particular condition. With the caveats that I don't know the situation, I think it conceivable that the parents were very much doing something foolish and life threatening, and judicial intervention is warranted in such a case. That being said, it could just as easily have been an overreaction on the part of the hospital staff. It really depends on the situation, which is far from clear.

Parents of sick children will do almost anything to keep them alive. I'm not convinced it's productive to prosecute parents seeking that care, or any "alternative" therapies that don't fall neatly into NHS protocol.

What strikes me is they didn't believe they had the best medical care available.

[Hazir]

Parents of sick children will do almost anything to keep them alive. I'm not convinced it's productive to prosecute parents seeking that care, or any "alternative" therapies that don't fall neatly into NHS protocol.

What strikes me is they didn't believe they had the best medical care available.

Few people believe their dying relatives have the best medical care available.

[GGT]

Few people believe their dying relatives have the best medical care available.

Their expectations depends on the age of the person, and their economic status/value....as well as the national narrative.

If there's desperation for a child, there's probably desperation for elders, too.

[RandBlade]

Few people believe their dying relatives have the best medical care available.

One issue is that the NHS doesn't provide the best medical care available, it provides the best affordable medical care available. NICE regularly rejects new drugs or treatments with a proven benefit because that benefit isn't deemed worth the cost. I suspect all healthcare systems have a cost/benefit analysis but when you're the ones being told that a benefit that may exist isn't available due to it being too expensive then it can make you want to take actions into your own hands.

This proton beam therapy will be available in the UK in a few years rather than needing to fly people to other countries, they're doing that because there is a benefit (in some cases). I suspect once its available locally you'll find more referrals than occur now while the NHS has to pay people to fly to America and pay the American medical systems to do the treatment.

[Flixy]

Don't all insurers do that to some extent? That said there's a whole difference between not covering something and preventing someone for getting it on their own. Unless there's of course medical reasons not to allow it.

[Loki]

There are different thresholds for "allowing" the use of this type of equipment. From quite a bit of anecdotal evidence, it seems the threshold in Britain (in terms of the likelihood of success) is significantly higher than in similar countries. Most recent story: someone was denied access to long-term psychological care because they told the psychologist at the first meeting that they weren't going to kill themselves (despite having depression and suicidal thoughts for years)...

[GGT]

Loki, make up your mind regarding governmental powers and influences, and be honest about any 'inherent' gaps between education and health. If you're assuming the US has a 'superior position', you could be wrong. But you wouldn't want to prove your hypothesis using your children's or grandchildren's lives in the balance, would you?

[Loki]

Considering that I chose to live in the US instead of the UK, I'm pretty sure I already made that decision. And it's not just a "hypothesis" that it takes significantly longer to get access to specialized equipment in the UK. For instance, just about any medium-sized medical office in the US has an x-ray machine. In Britain, you need to get a hospital appointment to use one (needless to say, you're not going to get that appointment for the next day unless you have an immediate medical concern, like a broken leg).

[GGT]

Considering that I chose to live in the US instead of the UK, I'm pretty sure I already made that decision. And it's not just a "hypothesis" that it takes significantly longer to get access to specialized equipment in the UK. For instance, just about any medium-sized medical office in the US has an x-ray machine. In Britain, you need to get a hospital appointment to use one (needless to say, you're not going to get that appointment for the next day unless you have an immediate medical concern, like a broken leg).

Then I'm asking the wrong person, but your English/Jewish wife isn't active on the forum, huh.

BTW, most US emergent medical care doesn't require specialized first providers. There are either people "trained" in first level emergency care (aka First Aid), and/or automated cardiac defibrillator machines, plus highly organized emergency personnel....that can triage from street to helicopter to hospital.

Perhaps your wife should speak her own mind, and explain why she thought it was better to live in the US than the UK, but only after she got her English education/degree?