British court rules boy can have radiotherapy, despite parents being against it
It is now estimated that 20 per cent of children, as young as six, are at risk of developing cancer when their parents do not believe that medical treatment can cure them.
But despite fears that many children who undergo radiotherapy will eventually die, doctors do not believe they should be given any special protection if they refuse treatment or refuse to have surgery.
Experts in the area say the treatment is routinely given because many parents are against it and do not want to see their children suffer.
The Government has admitted that, since 2006, more than 25,000 treatment orders have been handed down for children who do not believe the benefits of radiotherapy outweigh the risks.
In this week’s issue of the journal Cancer Care, Prof David Atherton of the University of Birmingham reports on the case of 10-year-old D.L, from Leeds, who was given radiotherapy by his parents before포커 he was treated at the start of April.
‘When we went into his GP to complain about this, he said it was completely fine, he’s going to get on a bike and go down to Newcastle and work out and if he’s going to have chest surgery, he should get his operation. We told him that we were not really concerned about that’
D.L. has been told he is the second child in four years who has received the wrong treatment. The previous case involved a boy aged nine.
In his report, Prof Atherton says: “It is clear from the information I saw from the doctors that he was not in danger of dying – he had just had a chest infection and부천안마 the radiotherapy was a very serious procedure.
“When we went into his GP to complain about this, he said it was completely fine, he’s going to get on a bike and go down to Newcastle and work out and if he’s going to have chest surgery, he should get his operation.”
This did not stop the parents from giving him the wrong radiotherapy but Prof Atherton thinks they acted appropriately.
“I’d argue that some of the patients who have had chest surgery 일산안마who do not want to have chest surgery, because of the risks, may be allowed to have chest surgery when they do want to and there are quite a few of these,” he said.
In an attempt to avoid the conflict between doctor’s advice and patient’s wishes, the Government’s health care advisers recommended that doctors should refus