Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 208

Ashya: Why Still A Ward of Court?

I am astonished to discover that Ashya is still a Ward of Court and that somehow the traumatised Kings have to brief lawyers in Marbella to appear to argue their case in a hearing in the High Court in London on Monday, otherwise it will be the arguments of the Southampton General, in which the Kings have lost all confidence, which will prevail. I tried yesterday to obtain a coherent explanation out of the Portsmouth City Council, who are the drivers of this legal action in their child protection role. I was confronted by flustered officials who were clearly under stress, not one of whom could give any explanation of what was happening and kept referring me to someone else.

Petitions have been handed in to Downing Street, money is pouring into to charities raising funds to help this family, the Secretary of State for Health is sending a top cancer specialist to help the Kings make the right choices for Ashya, the clinic in Prague stands ready, the whole country is watching. There is no child on earth who at this moment has more goodwill and attention, yet someone somewhere believes his interests can only be served by decisions being taken in an adversarial court process by a judge in London, when the entire family is in Spain.

To add to the burden of these parents after all they have had to endure, with Ashya effectively a prisoner in a hospital room in Marbella, is utterly absurd; indeed it is worse. It is cruel. And it has to stop. To continue it under the guise of child protection is an abuse of process. Moreover it exposes this whole saga to the grave suspicion that it was never about this child’s welfare which, if the Southampton Genera had stopped for one moment to think through rationally, it would have known was never at real risk.  No, it was about the ego of doctors, who do not like being challenged.

The authorities have set in train a process which has run amok. The obligation to protect children is not, and never has been, a licence to abuse parents.

Scotland: Could It Be Yes?

There is now a real momentum in the Yes campaign, which crosses political divides and families. It is a momentum of hope and adventure in a spirit of can do. This ought to be countered in the No campaign by a celebration of Scotland’s golden age of influence prosperity and freedom since it has been in the Union. But it isn’t. Instead the No campaign is bogged down in its opening chapter, which is negative and risk averse. This was right for the start but wrong  for the end. This may cost No the victory everyone thought was in the bag.

If it does and Yes wins, the effect on Scotland politically will be a lot less than the impact on England. In Scotland Alex Salmond will remain in power and whatever form of currency deal he manages to negotiate will leave Scotland with little more autonomy economically than it now has anyway. Even if he loses his next election, Labour will win and Labour is the traditional party of Scotland.

But south of the border the whole political map will change. Without Labour’s forty plus MP’s the chances of a Milliband outright win in 2015 become odds on against. The more likely is a Camaron win or a Cameron/Farage coalition. Not only will leftist Edinburgh be under the thumb of right wing London, but the chances of a vote to leave the EU going Yes increase significantly. This would mean a detachment from Scotland and a detachment from Europe putting England back to where it was a the time of Elizabeth I.

September is going to be very interesting. In October comes Clacton. By Christmas the United Kingdom could not only face breaking apart, but also an English political revolution which would open the way to a UKIP breakthrough in 2015.

But remember politics is politics and none of it may happen. Nobody appears to know whether Scotland would have the right to elect MPs to Westminster in 2015 to sit until Independence was ratified in 2016, or whether they will be excluded. Constitutionally the 2015 Parliament should include Scotland and be dissolved in 2016 with new elections as a parliament for the remaining UK. But as Britain does not have a formal constitution and as the situation would be without precedent, it is likely we will use the tried and tested formula of making something up.

Southampton General: Tell The Truth!

There is something seriously wrong with the culture of the Paediatric Dept. of Southampton General Hospital. According to the BBC News Website the hospital yesterday said in a statement:

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”.

This is not true. Yes both therapies are equally effective at dealing with the cancer, but ordinary radiotherapy can affect healthy brain tissue adjacent to the cancer site with potential permanent impairment of brain function. Proton beams are precisely targeted to only the affected area and are without the potential damaging side effects. This information is all over the internet and the TV news, with graphics to demonstrate, together with case histories of lives saved.

What planet is this hospital on?

Read And Relax: Four Thrillers

 

Each of these books is different and not part of a sequence, but all of them have the common ability to draw you into the story and keep you turning the pages from start to finish. Click on any the images for my page on Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com

 

Aysha: Now Many Questions

The whole country from the Prime Minister downwards is relieved by the withdrawal of the ludicrous criminal accusations and other legal moves to fetter this innocent family, whose only crime is to want the best treatment for their child. And I use the word crime because that is what was invented by a combination of hospital hysteria and police ineptitude.

There are many questions outstanding and this story will run and run, because a shocked nation has rightly made it a cause. While all will wish God Speed to this family in its re-unification and quest for treatment for brave little Aysha, the country will now want answers. Three stand out for immediate investigation.

What exactly did the Southampton General Hospital tell the Hampshire Police?

Why did the police not advise that no crime had been committed and why did they invent one?

What were the Portsmouth City Authorities told that caused them to rush to the High Court to have Ashya made a Ward of Court, without the parents, their legal representatives or anyone else being aware of it?

It could very well be that when these answers are known a crime has indeed been committed, but not by the King family.

Four Page Turners

 

Each of these books is different and not part of a sequence, but all of them have the common ability to draw you into the story and keep you turning the pages from start to finish. Click on any the images for my page on Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com

 

Ashya King: This Must Stop

This little boy’s parents are in a Madrid prison, he himself is isolated and alone under police guard in unfamiliar surroundings and his six siblings, led by the 23 year old eldest son, are looking after themselves and each other and to the extent contact is allowed, Ashya. What a gold star, well adjusted family. And why are they in this awful situation? They disagreed with their child’s doctors, lost confidence in them, and decided to seek private treatment abroad.

And what was the response of this country, which prides itself on fairness and freedom and human rights, and spends half its time pointing fingers at Putin, the Chinese and all those countries which fall short of our Utopia and sense of fair play? An international arrest warrant for child neglect, extradition proceedings and imprisonment of both parents.

This is one of the most despicable episodes of lunatic process on a Kafka scale, bereft of rhyme, reason, judgement and understanding. It is also a perversion of the course of justice. Hampshire police admitted to me yesterday that they had used the child neglect option because there was no other statue under which it could issue the warrant. There was no other statute because no crime had been committed. So they invented one. And that is itself surely a crime?

Ashya King: This is Outrageous

The British nation looks on aghast as this little boy remains alone without his family under police guard in a Spanish hospital, while his parents are taken from custody to Court to face extradition proceedings for child neglect, which  is manifestly absurd. Southampton General Hospital and the Hampshire police have started out with good intentions and ended up creating a nightmare for this family almost beyond imagining, on top of the fact that their little boy is very ill with life threatening cancer.

The fact that he was moved to a low dependency ward by the Spanish, is evidence that Ashya had been well and lovingly cared for by his parents, and was not suffering neglect or dangerous care as alleged. It is beyond the comprehension of this blog and most decent thinking people, how a civilised nation can allow such cruel procedures  to be an instrument of solving real and valid medical anxieties. The King family, whatever the outcome, will be traumatised by this experience. Meanwhile we can only hope for a good outcome quickly, as reason and compassion start to prevail.

In order that others are not put through this in future, we really must separate medical and family issues of child protection, from those designed to cope with violence, abuse and real harm. This is far too delicate and potentially damaging an element in family life to be subject to a one size fits all regime.

Four Good Books: Have Great Read!

 

Each of these books is different and not part of a sequence, but all of them have the common ability to draw you into the story and keep you turning the pages from start to finish. Click on any the images for my page on Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com

 

Southampton General: So Very Wrong

The treatment of the parents of the little boy with the brain tumour because they lost confidence in the ability of the paediatric department of this hospital to improve his deteriorating condition, is preposterous. The alarmist declarations that the feeding system was about to run out of battery life turns out to be nonsense and the clamour that the parents were dangerous nutters who were hazarding the life of their child was both untrue and and without any evidence to support it.

Now the parents are in custody in Spain and the child has been separated from them and is in a strange hospital on his own. Anyone who has the faintest grasp of the importance of parents to their desperately sick children will know that this is a cruel outcome of a grossly mishandled case by a hospital which thinks itself to be a good deal better than it is. This is not the first time this hospital has been associated with this kind of behaviour. We know of one case where it was instrumental in parents being threatened with a police protection order if they did not agree to a change of treatment insisted on by the hospital’s paediatricians. The parent backed down. The treatment was applied. The child died.

There are a lot of questions this hospital needs to answer about its methodology and its relationships with parents. Soon some very senior people will start to ask them.