Mon, 12 Oct 2009 6:12p.m.
Tamar Stitt has a rare form of liver cancer, and has been told she will die without chemotherapy
Doctors are pleading with the parents of a sick Perth girl to bring her back to Australia for potentially lifesaving treatment.
Tamar Stitt has a rare form of liver cancer, and has been told she will die without chemotherapy.
But the 10-year-old’s parents have fled to El Salvador where they are treating her with natural remedies.
“We will never agree for Tamar to have chemo,” says the girl’s mother, Arely Stitt.
“We have seen so many cases, and knowing what we know about natural remedies – they work slowly but it is worth it.”
Tamar was diagnosed with cancer in August.
“It was advanced. We needed to act quickly to have the best possible chance of success or survival for Tamar,” says Doctor Philip Aylward.
Doctors say a seven week course of chemotherapy will give Tamar a 50 to 60 percent chance of survival. Without it she will suffer a long and painful death.
But her parents are devout Christians, and say God will decide her fate.
“I don’t want to lose my daughter, but it is God’s decision,” says Tamar’s father Trevor Stitt.
“Who am I to fight against it?”
The hospital decided to fight the family. In an extraordinary move, doctors asked the Perth Supreme Court to force Tamar to have the treatment.
The night before the case was due to be heard, the Stitts fled to El Salvador.
“We saw this as a threat to take our daughter away, they were going to treat her,” says Mr Stitt.
Instead, he and his wife treat their daughter their way – wrapping her torso with red clay gathered from the hills around their home.
“It’s nothing black magic or voodoo, it is all proper stuff which has been seen to work,” says Mr Stitt.
Another Australian couple who refused to seek medical treatment for their baby daughter has just been jailed.
Gloria Sam had severe eczema and died from complications. Just like Tamar, her parents opted for natural remedies.
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