Court case for leukemia patient continues

A publication ban has been partially lifted in a case involving an aboriginal girl suffering from leukemia — whose family has decided to stop chemotherapy. We should note that in this case — McMaster Children’s Hospital is taking the Children’s Aid Society to court — to try and enforce treatment

The big news today was that the publication ban was partially lifted so while we can’t identify the patient, we can give details about what happened in court.

Last week, two doctors from McMaster Children’s Hospital testified. One of them gave an indication of the likelihood of survival without chemotherapy, She said that this child stood a 95% probability of survival with chemotherapy. Without chemotherapy, she said the child would die. But her parents have opted for natural medicine instead.

There was a strong showing of members of Six Nations this morning — some of them in full headdress.

Dawn Martin-Hill testified this morning about various elements of native medicine, even saying that she’s seen it prolong the life of a person with cancer though she couldn’t say for how long.

We asked her if traditional medicine can offer the same results as chemotherapy in this case: “What they didn’t include in there was First Nations children. While we don’t have the stats and the studies to demonstrate it, First Nations children suffer more severe effects and more long-term impact than non-First Nations children. So we have to understand why. There needs to be more research. But until then, there is effective treatment in communities with regards to traditional healing as well. (Sean: So can traditional healing cure cancer?) I think if it couldn’t, none of us would be here today.”

In the afternoon, the director of the Brant Children’s Aid Society was on the stand. Andy Koster asked the question ‘Who am I helping if I apprehend this girl?’ He said he takes a number of things into consideration when making his decision. The young girl is currently in Florida seeking natural treatment.

The will be more testimony tomorrow and the case could go into next week when the judge will render a decision.