Looby
Well-Known Member
I hate to say this because she's vile but read the Melanie Phillips article that was posted earlier.
Charlie Gard RIP ..
- Thread starter weltweit
- Start date
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Yes, I did read it and it sort of prompted my question.
I had no idea the case was even mentioned in the media over there, but it seems it was and might shed some light over America's convictions with respect to the NHS.
Thora
Differently Ethical
I think there are some significant cultural differences in how children are viewed in relation to their parents and also the purpose of health care between the UK and the US. American parents have more "rights" over their children without state inference (for example you can give your children away to anyone you like) so the idea that in the UK the child has best interests separate to the parents' wishes that can be enforced by the courts is a bit alien to start with. Obtaining health care is also about having the money to do it, so if the parents have £million in the bank and want experimental treatment then why should "the state" obstruct them?
You're saying, really, that when Cameron was Prime Minister, he
It is not immediately obvious in what way this is relevant to the matter of this child at all.
I seem to recall that other Prime Ministers also commented on news stories.
trashpony
Hag
This: https://reaction.life/charlie-gard-facts/ is a good article about the way the media twisted facts and whipped up hysteria
It's fairly basic stuff tbh. You have to consent to medical treatment, if the patient is a child then the parents or whoever has parental responsibility must provide consent, if that isn't forthcoming and there is a risk to the child then it will go to court.
dylanredefined
Not a house elf a tiger
The same argument anytime the NHS is seen to fail. If you rely on the state for health care they get to chose life or death for you and your loved ones.
Which is some how worse than your insurance provider saying no to a treatment plan or you simply not being to afford a course of treatment?
The next thing will be some kind of message from beyond the grave from Diana Spencer.
Really, someone retweeted a Tweet (else I would not have seen it) from the dear old Pope man:
I think it's just possible that there are several dead babies in the world today. And dead children. And dead adults. But play to the gallery, Pope, why not?
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
That's in the Melanie Phillips article I posted above, which was the first time I had heard of it.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
Thanks for posting that.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
Yeah - it struck me in a similar way. I naively assumed that the American press were repeating what was in the British press, but it seems not.
"With no hope of any recovery". Yes, but his parents seemed not to agree that such was the case. Did they really genuinely want the best for that child?
Well, no more seizures now, and no more pain.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
I think the point being made is that the child was put in a position of not being able to end his suffering, even though, to all intents and purposes, his life should have ended.
If that makes sense - not sure it does!
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
one of the more distasteful elements of this was watching wankers over there milk the case of a dying kid for political capital as they attempt to further erode healthcare for millions in the US
Gromit
International Man of Misery
'People too lazy to look things up and believing the media (whose best interests are to sentionalise stuff to sell newspapers)'.
Who could have ever suspected that such thing could happen in this day and age?
The US context is different but it's the kind of thinking that has underpinned attacks on public sector workers, teachers, health professionals that's been going on here for at least 25 years, not to be trusted, self-interested etc. this is just more dramatic.
But it is unimaginably cruel. To encourage not only denial in the parents but a persecuted state of mind in which they couldn't accept help from the staff at GOSH has left them without care as well as prolonging the suffering of their child.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
To me it looks like the opposite of that, a case where a doctor who stands to personally gain from a particular treatment continues to press for that treatment when other doctors who don't have ulterior motives are convinced it would be futile.
If HIrano didn't examine the patient or even read his medical notes then he should not have been discussing treatments with the family at all.
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SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Lucky there's nothing remotely cruel or unethical about a for-profit health service which burns through more public cash than the NHS while still charging extortionate fees isn't it? Lucky there's nothing even slightly off key about healthcare decisions being made by insurance companies with a clear motive to deny people care.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Liked, but not 'liked'.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
I know US medicine burns though more cash than the NHS, but I didn't know it burnt through more public cash, is that a fact?
Dr. Furface
One small step for me
Max Clifford must be hitting the walls of his prison cell in frustration that he can't get his mitts on Charlie's parents to flog their story to magazines worldwide and fix them up with a mu£ti-mi££ion book deal. But you can bet somebody else is already working on it.
not-bono-ever
meh
Will be interesting to see how the CG foundation will operate and who its bedfellows might be, given the Pro Life interet in the case
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
A case where all the 'right to life' twats stood outside the court - and assorted twats from Trump to the Pope - demonstrated that they have no respect for life at all. An enormously complex and horrible case in terms of the task of balancing the wishes of the parent against the rights of Charlie, but none of that was played out in the bandwagon jumping that took place online, right through to docs and nurses being threatened.
I was going to go through the motions of saying there should be no criticism of Charlie's parents. I don't have kids, so I can only see but not really feel the desperation they must have had. All that is true and, of course, let's not forget the nightmare they've gone through, from early concerns about his health right through to being told there was nothing that could be done. However, there should have come a point when they really listened to GOSH doctors. It's a horrible point that you reach, when being told that nothing more can be done and that carrying on might cause distress for the patient. But, at some point over the last few weeks they should have accepted what they were being told - particularly as it became clear the American specialist was a charlatan. In practice, they were being exploited, by the publicist who turned up from America and others. To be honest, its pointless being critical of them, but ultimately they weren't helping Charlie.
I was going to go through the motions of saying there should be no criticism of Charlie's parents. I don't have kids, so I can only see but not really feel the desperation they must have had. All that is true and, of course, let's not forget the nightmare they've gone through, from early concerns about his health right through to being told there was nothing that could be done. However, there should have come a point when they really listened to GOSH doctors. It's a horrible point that you reach, when being told that nothing more can be done and that carrying on might cause distress for the patient. But, at some point over the last few weeks they should have accepted what they were being told - particularly as it became clear the American specialist was a charlatan. In practice, they were being exploited, by the publicist who turned up from America and others. To be honest, its pointless being critical of them, but ultimately they weren't helping Charlie.
SheilaNaGig
Break requested
The Americans generally have a really weird fucked up idea of what the NHS is and how it works. I have family over there, some of whom are very Republican. Trying to have a conversation with them about it is a mixture of bewilderment and frustration. Almost everyone I've ever spoken with over there about healthcare seems to have fixed and immovable ideas about the NHS that are just plain wrong. And they seem to be completely attached to their ideas in a way that's just odd. They really don't want to be told different. It seems very important to them to believe that the NHS is a terrible system that cannot work.
SheilaNaGig
Break requested
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Yeah, does look like a right shithead.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Dunno about Charlie's parents, but I would happily die for either of my kids. When my youngest was very ill I would have given anything to have her better again, including my own life if it would have helped. So when this doc arrives saying there's a chance it doesn't surprise me that they clung to that with every fibre of their being.
Perhaps it went on longer than it needed, but having been given a slither of hope I can see why they were slow to let go.
Desperately sad for all involved.
R.I.P little Carlie
I dunno what chances of success the untested treatment in the US would have had but I don't blame his parents for hoping that it could have saved him, I'd feel the same in their position. I hope that medical science and care can develop and progress so that in future cases like this one don't have to happen. No parent should have to see their own child die, especially kids and babies.
I dunno what chances of success the untested treatment in the US would have had but I don't blame his parents for hoping that it could have saved him, I'd feel the same in their position. I hope that medical science and care can develop and progress so that in future cases like this one don't have to happen. No parent should have to see their own child die, especially kids and babies.
gosub
~#
This condition is one of the ones, stem cell research was passed for so that effective treatment might one day be available. Stem cell research that is opposed by pretty much all the hypocrites that were pushing the fake hope of 'magic powders'. Them, I have nothing but rage against. Be it the Vatican or Trump's America where actual helpful research is outlawed. To the parents and GOSH, a rock and a hard place, I remember from when Lorcan, my wife's best mate's youngest died from the same thing. For them, nothing but sympathy.
R.I.P.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Yeah, all of that, definitely. I wondered about editing what I said, to say something like the people around the family should have been making the point that carrying on wasn't in the baby's best interest (there may have been those conversations of course). I can understand the parent's desperation and, as you say, clinging onto hope in the shape of Hirano. I just think that they might have got tied into an adversarial process and maybe that stopped them having that really difficult discussion, to ask themselves the question 'is this in Charlie's best interest'?
