Boy found safe in Newcastle after being taken from Brisbane’s Lady Cilento Hospital – ABC Online

Updated April 28, 2017 17:50:00

A sick four-year-old boy, taken by his parents from a Brisbane hospital, has been located safe and well after a major police search across Queensland and New South Wales.

The boy was located in Newcastle on Friday afternoon and was being transported by ambulance to a local hospital.

The major search was sparked on Thursday afternoon when the parents who have complained about the boy's medical treatment took him from the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital in Brisbane while he was being treated.

Police said the boy, who is wheelchair-bound and has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, required urgent and ongoing medical attention.

Detective Acting Inspector Grant Ralston said the parents had not explained why they took their son.

"I believe hospital staff were talking to the parents and minutes later the hospital staff had gone into another room intending to return to talk to the parents, and they found the parents gone with the child," he said.

The trio were located in Newcastle late Friday afternoon, with the mother speaking to police shortly before the father came forward with his son.

"The mother gave police information as to where her son and the father may be, contact was made with the father and he returned with the boy to where the police were with the mother," Acting Inspector Ralston said.

He said it was unlikely the parents would be charged.

"Not at this stage, no," he said.

"We were primarily concerned with the welfare of the child."

The boy's mother, an anti-vaccination campaigner, has previously written online that the boy has cerebral palsy and epilepsy. She said hospital staff have not permitted the use of medicinal cannabis products.

This week she claimed online her son is allergic to food at the hospital and that the Department of Child Services had "forced" him to be admitted.

"He doesn't need to be back at the hospital he hates it," she said in a video posted on Facebook.

The mother, who has a large social media following and has been detailing her son's illness online, said she stopped vaccinating him when he was two years old.

"I decided to stop vaccinating because the last vaccines put my son into status of seizures and he lost his smile and laughter and so much more," she wrote.

Topics: law-crime-and-justice, crime, child-health-and-behaviour, family-and-children, brisbane-4000, newcastle-2300

First posted April 28, 2017 17:24:37

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Boy found safe in Newcastle after being taken from Brisbane's Lady Cilento Hospital - ABC Online