Interviewed for a documentary, medics at the Southampton General Hospital where Ashya King was being treated before his parents decided to take him away without permission, have spoken out about the incident, noting the "outpouring of hatred" they received.
The hospital had come under fire last year when they called the police on Brett and Naghmeh King after the couple took Ashya away and brought him abroad for treatment. As the Kings didn't inform the hospital that they will be taking their son, hospital staff alerted the authorities, fearful that Ashya's condition would deteriorate. The boy was diagnosed with brain cancer and had to be fed through his nose at the time.
Nursing staff Matron Kate Pye said the Kings put Ashya at huge risk.
"And if you asked me again, ‘Would I phone the police?' the answer would be yes every time. Because if something had happened to that little boy in that care, then we would have been accountable for that," she added.
Brett and Naghmeh took Ashya from the hospital because they wanted to explore proton beam therapy as an alternative treatment. The National Health Service doesn't offer the treatment so the Kings had to find it elsewhere. But as they didn't have the hospital's consent to take their boy, the incident got complicated, most especially after the couple was arrested in Spain after an international manhunt.
All the public saw were parents being kept away from their child who they simply wanted to get better, which, to put it lightly, put Southampton General Hospital in a bad light.
Peter Wilson, the hospital's pediatric intensive care consultant, recounted that at one point, their switchboard overloaded due to the sheer number of phone calls coming in, all aiming to leave vile messages for the staff at Southampton General. Letters were also sent to the hospital, one of which wished his own children would get cancer and die.
After a High Court ruled that Brett and Naghmeh were to be released from prison and reunited with Ashya, the family headed for Prague where the boy received proton beam treatment. The NHS decided to pay for the procedure even though it is not the treatment its own doctors recommended.
As proton beam treatment is highly targeted, it is able to avoid damaging healthy tissue in the process of eliminating a tumor. Ashya's parents said the boy is now in remission.
Photo: Dan Cox | Flickr
