Quebec's child protection agency has declined to intervene in the case of a three-year-old Outaouais boy with cancer whose parents have refused chemotherapy for him.
Anael L'Espérance-Nascimento, 3, has cancerous cells in his brain and spinal cord. He was being treated at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
(CBC)
Anael L'Espérance-Nascimento was being treated at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa for tumours in his brain and spinal cord, which are currently not life-threatening.
Doctors recommended chemotherapy for the boy, but his parents have decided instead to treat him by feeding him on a diet of almost exclusively organic vegetables, without sugar or animal products.
Anael's mother, Marie-Élise L'Espérance, said Tuesday the treatment is based on the idea that the body can heal itself if given the right nutrition.
CHEO officials asked the province's child protection agency to intervene, but it declined.
The hospital can still ask the court to order the treatment.
Anael's mother, Marie-Elise L'Espérance, said the family will consider chemotherapy if the boy's condition does not improve.
(CBC)
But Jean-Pierre Ménard, a Quebec lawyer who specializes in medical cases, said the court rarely overrides parents' right under Quebec law to refuse treatment for their children unless the advantages of the treatment far outweigh the suffering that the treatment will cause.
L'Espérance said the family will consider chemotherapy if her child's condition does not improve, but she said earlier treatment at the hospital during almost the entire winter took its toll on Anael, who grew small and whose complexion grew green.
"So we could not imagine continuing it there," L'Espérance told the CBC's French-language service, Radio-Canada, in French. "We would probably have lost him."
Corrections and Clarifications
- Jean-Pierre Ménard is a lawyer who specializes in medical cases. He is not, as was originally reported, a lawyer for the family that refused chemotherapy for their son. July 25, 2007|4:30 p.m.
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