HIV-Infected Girl in UK Legal Wrangle Is Taken into Court Custody
Originally published by Reuters Health, May 9, 2002
LONDON (Reuters) — A 3-year-old girl whose father is blocking her treatment with conventional drugs for HIV/AIDS was made a ward of the court on Wednesday, a British legal official said.
The 39-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and his HIV-positive partner fled Britain in 1999 with their baby after a court ruled the girl should be tested for HIV.
Australian officials last week ordered the man, an alternative healthcare practitioner, to return to Britain with his HIV-positive daughter. On their arrival at Heathrow airport, father and daughter were met by police and representatives of the High Court.
"The girl was made a ward of court and will be looked after by social services," a spokeswoman for the Lord Chancellor's Department said. The girl was understood to be in a London hospital.
After the death of her mother of an AIDS-related illness last year, the girl was taken into protective custody by Australian police and seen by a physician who found she was HIV-positive. The father broke a court order and disappeared with his daughter from the state of Victoria where the family lived. Police arrested him last week in a raid on a Sydney home and again took the girl back into protective custody.
The father has been quoted by Australian media as saying he would continue to fight any attempt to force his daughter to undergo conventional medical treatment. Health officials in London are trying to convince him to agree to emergency treatment with antiretroviral drugs, a course that he has objected to because he is concerned about the side effects of the medications.
A spokeswoman for AIDS charity Terrence Higgins Trust said it was regrettable the case had gone that far.
"It would be in the best interest of all concerned if the father and clinicians and social services could agree on a course of action," Lisa Power, head of policy at the trust, told Reuters. "If that's not the case, there is no doubt that antiretroviral treatments are capable of prolonging life considerably…It's true that the drugs are difficult to take but they are not as toxic as the virus, which kills you."
The Lord Chancellor's Department spokeswoman said details were being finalised as to how to proceed with the case. "I expect it will go to court soon because of the sensitive nature of the case," she said.
