Mother sure natural remedies would cure daughter's cancer
The mother of a ten year-old girl who died from liver cancer after being given mud packs and herbal tea instead of chemotherapy has told an inquest she was "100 per cent" sure natural remedies would cure her daughter.
Tamar Stitt died in 2009 of liver and stomach cancer, after her parents Trevor and Arely, refused chemotherapy treatment and instead took her to El Salvador.
That trip was taken on the eve of a Supreme Court hearing, at which a judge said he would almost certainly have ordered the child be treated at Princess Margaret Hospital against her parents’ wishes.
Months later, she was dead.
Giving evidence today, Arely Stitt said that after the initial cancer diagnosis by doctors at PMH, she began treating her daughter with remedies used by her family for years.
And she claimed she saw them working immediately, which convinced her the chemotherapy was not warranted.
"She was brighter, she was starting to eat a little bit more than before," Mrs Stitt said
"I had so much faith that (natural remedies) was going to work for Tamar.
"(I was) 100 per cent sure .... because I had seen it working so many times."
The inquest had previously heard how Tamar left for El Salvador - her mother's homeland - on the same day as the scheduled court hearing.
Mrs Stitt claimed she had wanted more time for the natural remedies to work before agreeing to the hospital's recommended treatment.
"I did not have that support at all from PMH," Mrs Stitt said.
When Tamar got to El Salvador, she was given 'Red Mud' treatment, which involved clay being wrapped around her body, as well as dandelion tea.
When questioned last week, Tamar's father Trevor refused to accept that chemotherapy gave Tamar a better chance of survival than the chemotherapy, but also said the natural remedies had been preferred at the insistence of his wife and her mother.
Mr Stitt also claimed he himself was treated of various ailments by clay sourced from hills south of Perth.
The inquest continues
