A provincial court judge has ordered a B.C. man to give his son medication for asthma despite the father's insistence the child does not have the respiratory condition.

Port Coquitlam judge Robin McQuillan waded into the dispute between the separated parents after the five-year-old's mother refused to return the boy — named O.L. — to his father because she feared her ex-partner was placing the child at increased risk of succumbing to COVID-19.

"The father may have legitimate concerns about the process leading to a diagnosis of asthma. However, without an opinion to the contrary, I am unable to conclude that O.L. does not have asthma," McQuillan wrote.

"Erring on the side of caution is in order. I find that to be particularly so in the current era of COVID-19 which represents a pervasive threat to all members of the community, but especially those that have underlying health issues."

'Rolling colds and flu'

The judge's decision raises a new twist in a growing series of decisions related to disputes between parents over custody and fears that ex-spouses are going to place children at risk of contracting the novel coronavirus.

The conflict dates back to 2015 when O.L. was experiencing minor wheezing. A chest X-ray was taken when O.L. was five months old, and a doctor who saw him a few months later said his wheezing episodes did not look like asthma.

A B.C. provincial court judge has ordered a father to administer asthma medication to his son, finding that it was necessary to err on the side of caution in the COVID-19 era. (David Horemans/CBC)

Nonetheless, the boy was referred to the Lung Clinic at B.C.'s Children's Hospital and over the next two years, a family doctor placed O.L. on two different types of inhaler.

The parents separated in early 2017 and the mother became concerned enough about the father's refusal to administer the inhalers that she called the Ministry of Children and Families.

The mother claimed the child suffered a series of "rolling colds and flu" in the intervening years and that he would become marginally better during her parenting visits and marginally worse during time spent with his father.

O.L. told another doctor this February that he wasn't allowed to have his puffers at his father's home. The doctor urged the mother to "encourage" the father to administer the inhalers.

Things came to a head in late March when school ended indefinitely, and the couple exchanged emails in advance of what was supposed to be the father's parenting time.

"The father would not respond to questions regarding asthma management and the mother stated that if the father would show her that he had the inhalers she would do the exchange with him," McQuillan wrote.

"He refused to do so and she refused to exchange O.L."

'Not typical for asthma'

The father told the judge he doesn't believe there's any evidence to support the diagnosis of asthma. He claimed to have got a second opinion in 2018, but did not present a record.

He provided a note from yet another doctor who performed a diagnostic study in February in which he stated "the overall pattern is not typical for asthma."

"The father asserts that administering asthma medications which are unnecessary may be harmful to him and he attaches a number of online medical articles which suggest that children using asthma medication may present with symptoms of depression, hyperactivity, ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder," the judge wrote.

McQuillan said he found the mother's evidence more convincing than the father's, which was backed up by material the judge called "very dated or vague and subject to interpretation."

The judge said he found the mother's decision to withhold the child justified given that asthma is "one of those particularly vulnerable underlying health issues" for people with COVID-19.

But he ordered custody to return to an alternating schedule as long as schools remain closed, and ordered the father to comply with "all asthma treatment recommendations" from O.L.'s primary care physicians.