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The director of the Children’s Aid Society of Brant was defending his agency’s decision not to force a child to have chemotherapy in a Brantford courtroom Friday. It’s a precedent setting case — where a person’s right to refuse medical treatment for their child is challenged by doctors and hospital officials — who say without the treatment the child will die. McMaster Children’s Hospital launched the court challenge against CAS after it refused to force treatment on an aboriginal girl with leukemia.
The testimony revolved around the responsibilities of the Children’s Aid Society. Andrew Koster, the Director of Brant CAS said his agency has an obligation to protect a child under the Child Family Services Act but in this case they felt there no protection needed.
Koster told the court the agency felt taking the girl away from her family would cause emotional and physical harm to a child who was already ill.
Doctors at McMaster had testified earlier that there was a 95 percent chance the child would be cured with chemotherapy. Without chemotherapy, the doctors said she would surely die.
Her mother stopped chemotherapy after ten days and opted for natural, traditional remedies, taking the girl to a clinic in Florida.
Court heard that doctors told the CAS and the child’s mother that the risk of her dying increased every day she was not taking treatment and that stopping it could make it more difficult to treat later on.
But CAS still did not intervene saying it felt the provincial consent and capacity board was the proper forum for this dispute. It has the power to determine someone’s capacity to make appropriate medical decisions.
Mark Handelman, Brant Child and Family Services: “Nobody wants this child to die, it’s a horrible thing to even contemplate and everybody hopes for her survival but there are different views from her community and from a hospital about the best way to achieve that and there’s a forum in which that can be aired.”
And that, according to Handleman is the consent and capacity board. We can’t name the child because of a publication ban. Some of her family were in court today. They told CHCH that she is doing well on the treatment in Florida. They said her blood work has improved since she arrived there. The case resumes next week.
