10 Sep 2009 British MP Charges Some Parents Have Been Threatened for Questioning Health System

A Liberal Democrat Member of the British Parliament is charging that some parents in Britain have been told they could lose legal custody of their children because they complained about the British government’s National Health Service.

From the Times (UK):

Parents are being threatened with having their children taken into care after questioning doctors’ diagnoses or objecting to their medical care.John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, who campaigns to stop injustices in the family court, said:

“Very often care proceedings are used as retaliation by local authorities against ‘uppity’ people who question the system.”Cases are emerging across the UK: The mother of a 13-year-old girl who became partly paralysed after being given a cervical cancer vaccination says social workers have told her the child may be removed if she (the mother) continues to link her condition with the vaccination.

A couple had all six of their children removed from their care after they disputed the necessity of an invasive medical test on their eldest daughter. Doctors, who suspected she might have had a blood disease, called for social services to obtain an emergency protection order, although it was subsequently confirmed that she was not suffering from the condition. The parents were still considered unstable, and all their children were taken from them.

A single mother whose teenage son is terminally ill and confined to a wheelchair has been told he is to become the subject of a care order after she complained that her local authority’s failure to provide bathroom facilities for him has left her struggling to maintain sanitary standards…

Read the entire story here.