Monday, May 19, 2014

Justina Pelletier

I hope everyone will excuse my absence. I have been ill. 
Apparently someone decided to give me the plague and kill me slowly. They failed. I'm still kicking. Just feel like I have a cold now.
Anyhoo, let's discuss our rights today. I read an article and then saw a follow up piece on the news about Justina Pelletier.
This is a girl who was diagnosed with mitochondrial disease and who was rushed to the hospital because they thought she had the flu, which in her case can be life threatening.
Upon arrival her normal doctor was not there yet and a new ER doctor, took over.This doctor threw out her diagnosis saying that she had a physiologically induced condition called somatoform disorder, When the parents tried to take her out of there after questioning her new diagnosis, they were in for the fight of their lives as the hospital now claimed medical child abuse. The parents were escorted off the property by the police and have not been able to take their daughter home since as the state took custody. She is only allowed to speak to them for 20 minutes a week supervised, and only gets limited supervised visitation. 
The parents have an older daughter with the same diagnosis who is doing fine. Justina ice skated, and over all was an active happy child. From everything I have seen her long healthy hair is now stringy and missing on half of her head. She is now in a wheel chair and cannot speak properly. All this since they took her away from her parents over a year ago. 
Now my question is simple. When a doctor diagnosis your child with something, who doesn't listen? They already had one child with this disease. She was obviously doing better in their care than she is now in the states care. Why were these parents punished for trying to do the right thing? They have lost everything trying to get this girl back home and paying for medical bills. This sickens me that the government has the right to do this to good honest people. 
The girl is now in Foster care. This is dumb considering I know a lot of people that have had DCS called on them because of abuse multiple times by multiple people and they still have their children with no repercussions.  The insanity of this pisses me off to no end. You can find more on this here
Her father finally broke the gag order the judge put on him so you can watch his interview and hopefully get just as upset about this as me. 

7 comments:

  1. This is ridiculously wrong! Something is missing from this story. The parents should sue the Hospital and the State. Something is missing. I have a feeling the parents overreacted, made a scene, and the hospital is reacting to that inappropriately. It does make you angry though, I can understand when parents refuse obvious treatment for weird religious reasons, but to not allow a qualified Tufts medical care? Something must be missing from this story.

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    1. I don't know Joe. I've been researching it and cannot find anything wrong on the parents side no matter what media I look at. It seems like a psychiatrist and this doctor teamed up against Tuft's doctors and the parents. I've looked at picture after picture and read the reports. It's crazy.

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  2. i am sorry you have been ill.

    as for the case you cited, it would be terrifying for any parent - that it could happen to them. bless that family and all who love them.

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  3. What a terrible story...and it could happen to anyone. My son broke his leg when he was about one year old. It was an unusual break that would only happen in unusual circumstances, so someone at the hospital suspected child abuse. After the nurse informed us of these suspicious circumstances, she said a social worker would be talking to us. We were very cooperative, but when my son asked to nurse, the social worker immediately realized that we were not abusers.

    But yes, I realize that sometimes things can get out of hand with overzealous child protective service employees!

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  4. This is horrific and scary. Regarding your brother and your comment on my last post, maybe you should look up Hayley-Eszti's blog. She knows about related illnesses also. I think she is resting after that photo shoot she did for the Awareness Day, but I am sure she can put you in contact with a community of people who may be able to help your brother get a correct diagnosis. And she, like you, fights her illness with humor and strength. I think you will like each other.

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  5. PS I have links to her blog on my post.

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  6. It is crazy. Sadly, in most states there is no higher "court" over probate, so their decision stands regardless of how WRONG it is. My judge had 14 cases of child neglect against him, in which he allowed unsupervised visits with known child abusers (mostly fathers) endangering the children under the guise of "parental rights". And you know all too well what happened with my case... the only reason any sanity was reached was that every once and a while he was out and another judge would sit in and rule appropriately.

    Makes me crazy.

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