We must listen to informed parents

IN Scotland, PPR’s (parental rights and responsibilities) include the right to make decisions concerning medical treatment and the corresponding responsibility to safeguard and promote a child’s health and well-being.

Most parents whose children fall ill exercise their right with an appropriate degree of responsibility. Picture: AP

Most parents whose children fall ill exercise their right with an appropriate degree of responsibility; they work with the medical professionals, take their advice and trust the very best is being done for their child.

More complicated is a case like that of five year old Ashya King, whose parents believed the NHS could not offer him the treatment they believed was best. Therefore the parents felt they were acting in Ashya’s best interests and given he is now in Prague receiving the treatment they wanted for him questions must be asked about why those same parents were pursued across Europe, arrested and faced extradition and prosecution in England.

The internet allows parents to carry out detailed research and find out about all manner of cutting edge treatments. The initial reactions via social media that dismissed Mr and Mrs King as crackpots turned out to be very harsh and unfair. There is an onus on the parent to make informed decisions regarding medical treatment in a child’s best interests in order to exercise their right responsibly and fulfil their responsibilities. Equally the medical profession has an obligation to act sensibly and with compassion. A professional person faced with a patient or client who has a raft of internet based research may find it hard to avoid bristling or feeling their professionalism and expertise is being called into question. Still, that professional sometimes may have to take a step back and listen.

There will be cases where the medics want to do something that parents oppose. Those cases must be extremely difficult for all concerned and ultimately the courts may have to step in and take decisions for the child’s benefit.

However, the use of the European arrest warrant and the initial heavy handed approach in the King case was most unfortunate. While safeguarding the health and well-being of Ashya was no doubt at the forefront of everyone’s mind, creating a situation where a very ill, young boy was kept apart from his parents in a foreign hospital was surely not what these warrants were intended to do.

• Jennifer Gallagher is a partner with Blackadders, solicitors

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