There are tough cases in which hard law can struggle to cope with the nuances. The tragic story of five-year-old Ashya King, who suffers from a grade four medulloblastoma tumour on his spinal cord at the base of his skull, is one such case. It is an instance in which the sensitivity with which the law is applied is as important as the law itself.
Ashya’s parents, Brett and Naghemeh King, took Ashya from University Hospital, Southampton, after their son was refused proton beam therapy that they hoped, perhaps without any clear medical rationale, might help him and which is available at a clinic in Prague. Ashya was made a ward of court last Friday and Mr and Mrs King were arrested the following day at a hotel in Malaga where they had been staying with Ashya and his six siblings.
There has clearly been a serious breakdown in trust and communication between the hospital in Southampton and the King family, who have been threatened with a protection order to prevent them from entering the ward, so tired did the hospital authorities become with their demands for alternative treatment. Proton beam radiotherapy is not offered routinely on the NHS but there is a small budget to take children abroad for treatment at the discretion of a doctor. The hospital argues that the procedure that Mr and Mrs King are seeking will not be effective in Ashya’s case.
Mr and Mrs King have done what any parents would do in their circumstances. They have researched their son’s condition, found suggestions that proton beam radiotherapy might help and, given that they are prepared to pay for it, wish to try. It is entirely understandable. If the clinical judgment of the doctors in Southampton is correct, and there is no reason to suppose that it is not, then this needs to be explained to them gently and sensitively. It surely should still be possible for the Kings to seek private treatment without the need for an expensive and essentially legal pointless process of extradition.
It is unfortunate that all parties can act with propriety under the law and yet the outcome can be so unsatisfactory. The hospital in Southampton was acting responsibly, and in the best interest of Ashya, when it told the police that a patient had been taken against medical advice and that the missing boy’s health was in peril. The Hampshire police then followed due process to the letter in seeking an international arrest warrant for Ashya’s parents on the grounds of suspected child neglect.
Advertisement
Even so, it was surely heavy-handed of Judge Ismael Moreno to order Mr and Mrs King to be held in custody as they were fighting extradition to Britain. It cannot be right morally, even if it is legally, that Ashya should be held under armed guard for two days at the Materno Infantile Hospital without being permitted to see his parents. Mr and Mrs King confirmed that their son had been feeding well and that his drugs regime was in place. The hospital in Malaga confirmed that Ashya was in a stable condition.
“Laws”, said Swift, “are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” The Spanish judge has refused to allow bail for the Kings. It may be legally right but it is not morally good that, while a five-year-old boy is in hospital, his parents are handcuffed in jail, kept there for the crime, in effect, of trying to do their best to save his life.