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Paediatricians keep digging

There are clearly some paediatricians who like the idea of not being responsible for their statements in court. After all there are fees of around £3000 a go for writing basic reports.

A group of paediatricians from the UK have supported an article written by an academic lawyer in a US Journal (see link).

To see the detailed article requires a subscription account. However, there is a clear conflict. According to the GMC only 3% of paediatricians have faced complaints about child protection work. At the same time it claimed in this article that 14% have faced complaints.

Review what happened in Oldham. Totally innocent parents were put through the mill. Their baby probably suffered as well. I am sure that the expert witnesses, however, have got their fee.

False Positives are a problem. False negatives are also a problem. Hence it takes a bit more thought than simply saying the expert witnesses need to be immune from complaint.

What we have is a situation in which a number of people (not all of the experts) make a good living out of being witchfinders. They make allegations that are not based in good evidence and analysis, these are then believed by the secret courts and then lots of money is made by all the professionals involved. The children and parents, however, suffer.

Not clever.

Comments

moira said…
I sent you an article stating that paediatricians were saying that Prof Southall and Meadows had a right to make comments about a child as the child comes first -not the parent.That the child protection states that it gives them the right to make any opinion about a child -as its in the child's best interests.

In other words they can make unprofessional comments based on no evidence but just gut feelings they have,or emotion which leads to all this injustice.

The article also stated that abuse prosecutions were up by 244% but the numbers of children on the at risk register was at its lowest for years and numbers of children on register had gone down.

I read an article that stated the exact opposite that children on the at risk register had gone up whilst prosecutions for abuse had gone down.

So where did the paediatricians get their figures/Why are they defending these rogue doctors.

Obviously there are conflicting reports and numbers.

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