Medical Health Articles

Boy seized by child welfare to make sure he gets chemotherapy

Child welfare officials have taken temporary custody of an 11-year-old Ontario boy to ensure he undergoes chemotherapy after his father decided to take him off treatment for his aggressive form of leukemia.

His father, who along with the boy can’t be identified due to youth protection laws, told CBC News on Friday that the boy didn’t want to continue with the treatments.

“I think about the first time around what it did to him and how it almost killed him and when he told me he doesn’t want it anymore,” said. “He doesn’t want to die this way, he would rather die at home in a peaceful, comfortable way.”

The dad, who lives in Hamilton, was briefly shackled by security when he arrived at McMaster Children’s Hospital on Thursday with his son for what he believed was a routine appointment.

Local Children’s Aid Society officials then took custody of the boy due to the father’s refusal to admit the son for another round of chemotherapy.

The executive director of Hamilton’s Children’s Aid Society, Dominic Verticchio, said a court ruled the boy must be treated.

“It’s been very emotionally draining for everyone,” he said. “The fact of the matter is there is provincial legislation in place that states that children must receive the care and treatment they require.”

The father says the boy is being treated “like a prisoner” at the hospital room where he is now staying, under the constant surveillance of hospital security and Children’s Aid officials.

“He’s very angry and very upset,” the father said.

A compromise was reached Friday afternoon to allow the father and family members to visit the boy later in the evening.

But the father says the entire situation is disgusting. He said doctors told him that the boy has a 20 per cent chance of making it through his chemotherapy treatments, then a 50 per cent chance after that once he undergoes full body radiation and a bone marrow transplant.

He said the boy already has had a tough life — losing his mother to cancer at the age of four as well as suffering from psychotic episodes and fetal alcohol syndrome.