Children with ME, schools and the problems of FII diagnosis

From the article:
"Boston Children's Hospital doctor Colleen Ryan insisted she and other medical staff were doing what was best for Pelletier. She testified that Pelletier’s parents would obsess over her medical problems in a way that would make her worse. Ryan told jurors that’s why she recommended that the hospital and Department of Children and Families, which had taken custody of Pelletier, limit the contact between the girl and her parents".

"In earlier statements, one of Ryan’s lawyers said that Boston Children’s Hospital doctors had learned that Pelletier seemed to do better when her parents were not present. In her testimony, Ryan said the parents often became belligerent during meetings, which added to suspicions that her parents might have actually been causing some of Pelletier’s symptoms".

They were accusing the parents of making her health worse. Perhaps child abuse was suspected?
 
Mij said:
They were accusing the parents of making her health worse. Perhaps child abuse was suspected?
Click to expand...

Exactly that.

This is what has happens with young people in the UK and has been the justification for forcibly removing them from their home. Parents are put in the d***ed if you do, d***ed if you don't position. They either go along with treatment that will make their child worse or face having the child removed.

Once the child or young person is removed from the family, it seems standard to deny visiting rights or any access to allow the child to start to "recover" or engage with treatment without any influence from the parents or family.

Very often this type of thing is unreported to the press and stays well below the radar. Family courts, in the UK at least, will gag those involved. This is usually done to protect the child but it can be a two edged sword.

Karina Hansen went through a similar nightmare in Denmark. As did Sophia Mirza in the UK - although Sophia was an adult when it happened to her.

For every one of those cases reported there will be many, many more that are never heard about. Even if someone does try to publicise the plight of a loved one the chances are the authorities will be believed. They are the "experts" after all.
 
Invisible Woman said:
That you know of. Remember most of these cases don't come to light until after the event and parents of children may be gagged by family courts.

There's the US (Boston) case of Justine Pelletier who has a mitochondrial disorder I believe:
https://www.bostonherald.com
Click to expand...

Certainly possible that people are gagged from speaking out. That was a horrendous case but what stood out for me at the time was that it seemed unusual unlike in the UK where families of kids who can't attend school due to long-term illness are subjected to this sort of terror all the time.
 
Sid said:
Certainly possible that people are gagged from speaking out. That was a horrendous case but what stood out for me at the time was that it seemed unusual unlike in the UK where families of kids who can't attend school due to long-term illness are subjected to this sort of terror all the time.
Click to expand...

I think there's a danger in assuming that because we don't hear about it, it isn't happening.

Only a small proportion of the cases in the UK come to light.

I have been involved in a case with the child of a close relative, a child who was being put at considerable risk of imminent harm & whose hospital team were pleading with social services to help. The hospital were willing to come along with me to meetings with child services. Child services blocked them at every turn and wouldn't engage. So the opposite also happens in the UK & that doesn't always get publicised either.

As a matter of fact, children go missing from schools all the time in the UK with no follow-up. Sometimes they are brought abroad for holidays and end up in forced marriages never to return, sometimes they're from travelling communities who have simply moved on etc. I didn't discover this until I was in an argument with a school about how they didn't raise any red flags when there was a child at obvious risk who was missing chunks of school without a good explanation.

Not every child is treated the same.

I'm not saying here is better or worse than there or anywhere else. The reality is we simply don't know so it's safest not to assume.
 
Invisible Woman said:
That you know of. Remember most of these cases don't come to light until after the event and parents of children may be gagged by family courts.

There's the US (Boston) case of Justine Pelletier who has a mitochondrial disorder I believe:
https://www.bostonherald.com
Click to expand...

A while ago now, there was a case in the US with involving a boy in his early teens who was given to foster parents. The ME community collected money for an electric wheelchair but they refused to give it to him. I think he eventually became old enough to be allowed to make his own decisions and went back home.

In the early days of the internet, there was a lot of discussion about ME parents in the US who were accused of Munchausen's. The problem was that the laws at the time (maybe still) meant that if you were accused of child abuse you could never be removed from the register even if it was proved it was a mistake so the charges followed them and caused problems with their other children.

The first case I heard of was Australian with a young girl being held in a closed ward. The nurses claimed she only cried when her mother was there and other horrible accusations.

No place is safe from a zealous attack on the diagnosis of ME.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom