Couple's Baby Taken By Police

[Marianne]

I don't know in America, but here, if a parent called the media to say that they're is the victim, it will slow down the process.

If parents believe their children have been taken unfairly, they must go through the normal channels rather than call the media. And if we put in doubt their words, it is because in this kind of case, we have only the point of view of parents (and personally, I repeat, I have NEVER seen a publicized case where the parents were not at fault (I see only one exception, and again). The last, in 2012, like, "we are the victims of state that we have removed our little boys unfairly ". people were angry. States didn't say anything except "we do our works". Six months later, we learned that parents were members of a sect that refuses care.)

[Maggie Mae]

There IS oversight. California law requires the case to go before a judge within 2 business days, which is exactly what happened here. Baby went to a good hospital, parents were ordered to refrain from removing child from hospital without a proper discharge, CPS dropped their request to keep the child in foster care, and are now just responsible for supervising the case and making sure that the parents are cooperating with medical treatment.

The nature of CPS work is such that sometimes, decisions need to be made on the spot.

Which is why I said it needs to be fully funded. And no, there isn't enough oversight for me. What does someone do if their child has been removed from their care and they can't afford a lawyer or their town/village doesn't have one? Why is their a disproportionate number of minority and native american children removed from their homes, despite the fact that there is no evidence that there is any difference in the rate of child abuse between races? What does a parent do when CPS is called repeatedly by a neighbor with a grudge, and they aren't educated enough to know that the "right" way to respond is to play the game where you calmly let someone take your child away? What kind of fucked up world do we live in where the "right" way to respond is to say "oh, sure, random person that I don't know who brought police back up, take my child and put him in a person's house who we don't know." Even though there are reports of sexual and physical abuse in the foster care system, somehow that is better than having a child sleep on the floor because you happen to be poor and your culture thinks it's okay?

As I said before, I think that social services and police and public servants do great work. I'd just like to see a little more oversight and common sense being using within the system. I think people who do these thankless jobs are underpaid. And I think that the goal shouldn't be to remove children from homes, but to keep families intact, regardless of religion or cultural differences.

[treemom]

Another thing to be aware of is that foster homes are not guaranteed to be very nice. Most have their own issues, and kids are more likely to be abused in foster care than the overall poulation.(Most often by other foster children)

That statistics has lots of confounding issues.

No home is guaranteed to be nice, and the foster care system has lots of issues, but most foster homes and most foster families are loving and do care for the children.

But regardless this kid is back with his parents and infant care for short term emergency placement is some of the safest foster care there is.

[GodsKnickers]

I could tell your our story but after the last couple of pages, I'm not sure...

[bananacat]

I'm glad this story is getting attention from the mainstream media because I am getting more and more suspicious of it, and whatever the parents are hiding is more likely to come out. I'd love to see Oprah find out the real deal and call them on it.

[Mama Mia]

I'm glad this story is getting attention from the mainstream media because I am getting more and more suspicious of it, and whatever the parents are hiding is more likely to come out. I'd love to see Oprah find out the real deal and call them on it.

I'm curious, what makes you suspicious of the parents story ?

[GodsKnickers]

Here's our story, FWIW. Make of it what you will but I am 100% honest with the telling.

WARNING - WALL'O'TEXT COMING AT YOU.

2.5 years ago, my youngest child was injured in a tobogganing accident. The injury was nasty - in medical terms (of which I grew to know too many of, for my liking) it was called a traumatic degloving. Don't google that - it's unpleasant to look at, to put it mildly. While nasty for my child and certainly not on the level of some degloving injuries, it was still pretty awful. I saw the interior workings of a part of my child's body that I should never have had to look at and hope never to have to see again.

Within a week of the initial treatment for the wound, infection set in. The initial date of trauma was Dec 2010. For weeks, my child was on antbx to treat the infection, both oral and IV meds. In late February 2011 with no seeming end in sight, I threw a minor fit and demanded an xray. That xray showed that my child had [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteomyelitis]Osteomyelitis.[/link] Within 2 days, my child was admitted to hospital for bone scans, and was seen by multiple specialists, and then had surgery to clean out the wound, check the state of the bone(s), debride scar tissue, etc. Released to home a day later, on more oral antbx. Supposed to be the end of it, by the time that course of antbx was finished.

Except it was not. Within 3 days of finishing that round of antbx, my kid was back in the hospital while they tried to figure it out. In the end, the decision was made, amongst my kid's team of doctors, to insert a PICC line for 7 weeks of major broad spectrum atbx. We also got a dx of a debilitating nerve disorder and they threw some pretty crazy strong meds at it. About halfway through treatment, I was sure something else was going on. Instead of getting better, my kid looked worse and worse by the day. Doctors pooh-pooh'd that anything else was going on. Treatment ended the last week of April 2011 and I returned to work from a 2 month leave of absence to care for my child. We were still returning to the hospital for follow ups and to be seen in emergency because whatever was going on, was causing intense pain. My kid continued to look like death warmed over. Finally, after some hard chain rattling, we managed to get one of the doctors to believe that something was up, and they referred my kid to a rheumatologist. By the time we got in to see the rheumatologist, to determine if my kid had Chronic Osteomyelitis, my child had gone into what they now refer to as 'remission.' Hence, the rheumatologist we saw, figured the possible dx of Chronic Osteomyelitis was likely to be a dead end. They continued my kid on the crap loads of antbx and supplements we had been given, in their hope that something would work for what they thought was the debilitating nerve disorder. We had a relatively good summer. We thought it was all behind us.

Thanksgiving Sunday 2011 (in Canada), we ended up back at hospital because my child was writhing in agony, the injured extremity was swelling, and they looked like death again. That resulted in a week long hospitalization while they did MRIs and such, to try and determine what was going on. The MRI showed that there was still something going on with the bone that had previously been affected but they didn't think it was a return of the Osteomyelitis. Errm, ok. During the summer, we had weaned this kid off all the meds, with the supervision of our PCP, who also felt that the dx of this nerve disorder was incorrect, specifically since the symptoms weren't really adding up to that dx. The meds were strong and caused no end of difficult side effects. The doctors threw up their hands, shrugged and just wanted to throw meds at my kid, 'just in case something sticks and works, ok mom?'

Nope. No more pills that might do something but don't really do anything except cause crazy ass side effects with no apparent effect on the situation. Oh, and the nurses fucked up the meds one night and technically OD'd the kid. Now, granted, it was the top end of what was safe - IOW, it wasn't likely to kill the child, but it was technically an OD because it was twice the dose prescribed. Did I hear word one from the assigned nurse, or the charge nurse who saw me walk back onto the unit after leaving for an hour to shower and get clothes, etc? Nope. I heard it from my kid and the staff never said anything until I went to the unit desk to say "Um, what now? OD? Explain?"

Anyway, after more hemming and hawing and shoulder shrugging, they told us to take the kid home and 'just deal with it.' We did. And for 3 days, I didn't sleep and neither did my kid, because the pain was intense. Finally, I sought help from our PCP who put my child on a painkiller typically used with cancer sufferers, one my own father had been on during his battle with cancer (which he lost), which mostly worked on the pain but left my kid a stoned out sleeping shell of their former self. 10 days later, with no change in what was going on, we returned to hospital and again they admitted my child, with no clear cut idea of what they were going to do. Well, that's not true. What they wanted to do was accuse my kid of merely being there as a drug seeker, that the kid was making it all up for attention, and that my husband and I were just drug pimping for our child. All this without really doing any real research into what was going on. No tests were done. After one night where they would not increase the dose of the pain killer because 'this is a peds dose' and 'sufficent' (except the child in question was in their late teens and the height and weight of an adult, so a child's dose was incorrect and inappropriate) and when they would not call the acute pain team in, I threw a rather large fit at the team the next morning about the lack of care during the night.

I can tell you that at about 4 am that night, I gave SERIOUS thought to removing my child from that children's hospital and seeking help elsewhere. I even gave thought to calling 911 and asking for an ambulance to remove my child from that hospital, to a different facility. But we were trying to work with the doctors, trying not to throw serious shit fits over a great lack of care and attention. This is 10 months out from the initial accident at this point.

Then they decided they wanted to throw a psychiatrist into the mix and threatened to have my child moved to the psych ward because my child couldn't possibly have anything going on, it was just drug seeking and attention seeking and the kid just wanted a cheap high and whatever else they could throw into the mix and they needed a psychiatrist. Let me tell you that the conversation at that point was epic and unpleasant, loud and long. I told them if a psychiatrist came into the room, he'd best be accompanied by security, by hospital administration and the hospital's lawyers because the shit fit I would throw at that point would be the likes of something they'd never before seen.

We had already spoken to a close family friend and obtained the name of a lawyer, whose number was programmed into all our phones, our child's included and said child was instructed at what point to make that phone call, if necessary (by this point, we never EVER left our child alone in their room, for any reason). I told them that if a psychiatrist so much as came sniffing around, my lawyer would be there in a heartbeat and if I had to, I'd go to the media. Was I slightly desparate at that point, to threaten media attention? You bet your sweet bippy I was. We'd been dealing with this for 10 months with no feasible dx. It wasn't like we weren't making every effort. We'd followed every protocol, gone to multiple specialists, several times a week, we'd done everything right up until it became clear that the meds were doing more harm than good and weren't indicated and refused to throw more shit at this, without a concrete dx.

I also might have yelled rather loudly that if this was simply about drugs and getting high, there was no need to come to a hospital to be accused of bullshit and to receive poor to no treatment - we could just walk a few blocks away and score drugs, that we didn't need doctors or hospitals for a cheap high, considering we were being accused of being our child's drug pimps as well. I kicked them all out and said the only people we wanted to see was the nurse assigned to our child, and the head of pediatrics. We ended up with the head of pediatrics in our room later that day, and by the time he left, another rheumatologist was scheduled to come see my kid the next morning. And that rheumatologist did come, and within an hour, was pretty sure he knew the dx, and had put our child on a round of steroids and they released us. Within 2 days the difference was immense and my kid was starting to look like a normal kid again. The pain was significantly less, the swelling was gone.

You know what made the difference? The frigging doctor actually put hands on my kid. The doctor actually listened to everything we had to say, about what we had observed about everything that happened and was going on. I had kept extensive notes since the day the infection was dx'd 10 months earlier. So he was able to see what I had observed, plus he'd taken my child's file home the night before and stayed up well into the night reading through it. He did his frigging homework. He acted like a frigging doctor which was more than we could say for nearly every other doctor we'd seen up to that point.

We finally got a dx when this doctor added our child to his roster of patients, when at the end of the round of steroids, all symptoms had returned with a vengeance. We ended up with the kid on a bunch more meds, but this time, the meds were tailored to the dx and appropriate. Still, the kid ended up with 2 more hospitalizations because the disease was spreading rapidly throughout their body and yet we still met resistance, including one moment where they didn't medicate for pain for 5 hours while they figured out a bed. Our rheumatologist had to come down to Emerg and basically throw a fit to get pain management for our child. We had to deal with them tossing our hospital room searching for drugs because the ward docs were just positive it was still drug seeking, even with a firm dx that was responding to treatment, just that the treatment couldn't keep up to the swift progress of the disease. More MRIs were sought, with much sneering and sniggering that nothing was going to show up which would just mean that it was all fake. Except that stuff did show up. And shut those assholes up. Even with concrete proof, those fuckers couldn't be bothered to eat a little crow and apologize.

The really funny part? *I* dx'd my kid myself, months earlier but do you think I could get anyone to listen to me? Nope, because I was just the mom, what the blue fuck did I know? As it turns out, my dx was correct, my instinct that the nerve disorder dx was wholly unsubstantiated was correct and my instinct and insistance that the horrible meds be discontinued and that they not be restarted, was correct. Sometimes, doctors are screwed in the head. Not a single doctor for months would think outside the box. They kept insisting those hoofbeats we were hearing were just horses, not zebras - if horses = faking it/drug seeking/whatever and zebras = an actual dx. There are still times I think back to those horrible nights in a facility that told us they would help us and did not, and wanting to just up and walk out with my child. AMA....pfft. We weren't getting MEDICAL TREATMENT, let alone MEDICAL ADVICE. How could we have removed our child against medical advice when we weren't getting any, nor treatment? That's exactly what I would have said had I tried to remove my child and had they tried to stop us.

After what we've been through, I am pretty willing to believe that it is entirely possible that an overzealous doctor who was miffed at not being treated like the god he thinks himself to be, set this shit show in motion. We ran into that attitude so many times I lost count. You want to know a "tell", when the doctor is pissed that you aren't just kowtowing to his 'brilliance' and are asking questions and are even intimating that perhaps another doctor could consult? They go from using 'layman's terms' to doctor speak, they speak quickly hoping that you don't pick up on or remember the 'big' terms they're throwing out at you, and they start with their frigging resume and how they were the most brilliant med student and did you know that they worked with such and such a doctor who was a genius in the field? Blah blah blah. It was one reason I spent hours a day researching and learning the terms they threw at me, the meanings and intent behind them, so that I could speak with some knowledge when I ended up with one of these doctors who were too precious for words.

Anyway....*paranoid* - it is possible that the parents aren't as much at fault here as some members of the medical community would like you to believe.

[Mama Mia]

Godsknickers, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I completely emphasize and have been through a similar nightmare. I am glad you finally got a dx and treatment for your child !

In my experience the answer to " we don't know what this is " tends to be " must be stress/ made up/" and to treat you as crazy and belligerent if you dare to disagree.

[Lillybee]

God's Knickers, what a nightmare and the worst thing is that your child had to suffer needlessly.

[mockingbird]

Pretty much what Mrs. S2004 said, GodsKnickers. I've had similar experiences. (Well, mostly my parents... the biggest fights happened when I was a baby. My mom was told she was crazy and needed to see a psychiatrist at one point.) I'm glad you got an answer eventually but I am sorry it took so long and you had to go through all of that :(

I totally believe this story could have gone either way, with either the parents or the hospital/doctors/nurses being in the wrong. There's not enough information now to really tell.

[LadyBlue]

Godsknickers, I'm so sorry your family had to endure that. The belief people in pain are just trying to score pain meds in RAMPANT in medicine. And disgusting. I'd rather 100 addicts get drugs than that one person in pain is treated like crap. I admit, I may be biased on this issue as my husband very nearly died because of this egregious treatment. He was in excruciating pain and was basically ignored for hours in the hospital before being turfed, with no pain meds of course, and no testing either. A week later I dragged him back to the hospital because he was YELLOW, so lethargic he hadn't left bed except to pee in a couple of days, and massively craving sugar.

Apparently they only take things they can see seriously, he was rushed back and all of his blood work was a mess. Sky high bilirubin, obviously, his blood sugar level was over 65 (Canadian system, normal is between 4 or 5 & 8). Eventually, after he collapsed and had to be intubated, they discovered he had had an acute pancreatitis episode and because of the lack of treatment his pancreas had died and was causing massive internal bleeding that blocked his liver. THEN every medical person we came into contact with asked us half a hundred times how much he drinks. Once or twice would have been ok, that's one of the main causes, but we also said that he'd likely had a massive gallstone a couple months prior and that is the other major cause and I'm quite certain very one of them put "wife claims he doesn't drink" in their flipping notes.

Tl:dr Some drs have serious issues, medical culture has serious issues and if I caught someone giving meds, refusing to explain and denying another opinion, I would very likely take my child and run elsewhere too. And I understand that you have to be discharged or sign forms to leave AMA. There's a huge assumption these people were even aware that once you go to a hospital, it can be nearly as hard a prison to get out of if they decide they don't want you to leave.

[treemom]

I don't think CPS is in the wrong however.

I have had four incidents where I expected CPS to show up at my door. They never did, but in at least two it would not have surprised me if they removed my kid temporarily.

There are lots of confounding factors in all these stories. Of course doctors and nurses can be wrong, we know that. And yes, sometimes a CPS worker can be over zealous, we all know the anecdotal stories about this.

But in this case it wasn't months and months, they didn't bring in another doctor to consult. And CPS job is to investigate, and sometimes that means removing the child temporarily.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I don't know in America, but here, if a parent called the media to say that they're is the victim, it will slow down the process.

If parents believe their children have been taken unfairly, they must go through the normal channels rather than call the media. And if we put in doubt their words, it is because in this kind of case, we have only the point of view of parents (and personally, I repeat, I have NEVER seen a publicized case where the parents were not at fault (I see only one exception, and again). The last, in 2012, like, "we are the victims of state that we have removed our little boys unfairly ". people were angry. States didn't say anything except "we do our works". Six months later, we learned that parents were members of a sect that refuses care.)

Rules for media vary depending on location.

In Ontario, Canada, there are strict rules against disclosing the names, to protect the privacy of the children. Media outlets can only use initials, and cases often end up with nicknames (eg. "Mennonite spanking case"). Unlike other cases, the general public is not permitted in the courtroom, but members of the press are (the idea is that the general public can't be prevented from gossiping and therefore violation confidentiality, but local media outlets can and will be legally sanctioned if they violate a court order for confidentiality). Responsible media coverage can be a good thing - reporters attend the hearings, report on what came out in court, and issues can come to the attention of the public. When I say "responsible media coverage", I'm not talking about rightwing nutjob sites masquerading as legit news.

Re doctors, parents and social/cultural issues:

I've been involved in cases where miscommunication, personality clashes, cultural issues and bad authority dynamic resulted in CPS involvement. I've also seen it result in bad care.

Some people will not come across as "sweet". They will question professionals, immediately point out problems, demand second opinions and changes in personnel and be reluctant to simply go along with a particular diagnosis/plan/treatment. Sometimes, they are less than tactful when they do so. Some professionals take this personally, esp. if they are used to patients/clients who are more docile. You can start to get case notes with comments like "staff felt that mother's manner was threatening", when the problem was simply that she was loud and insisting on certain rights. Eventually, the "difficult" label sticks, and there's a question of whether a parent with so many run-ins is unfit or suffering from some sort of personality disorder. Social workers hear negative reports, but not always do the digging to find out the full story behind each report.

Issues of culture and class compound the problem. I've noticed a bias toward "sweetness" in many cases - you could be a lousy parent, but if you are sweet and cooperative and accept help and advice, social workers will love you. Some people learn to "keep sweet" when dealing with the system. Others are afraid -they've had negative experiences, and they've also been socialized to be tough and not show weakness. If there are cultural differences and barriers, they may not completely understand what is going on, they may be worried that the system is not taking them seriously and/or is biased against them, and they may feel that they have to be demanding. It wasn't that unusual for me to see a side of clients that the other professionals didn't, because they trusted me but didn't trust them.

I did wonder if the parents background played any role in this. In the former Soviet Union, being passive with the system was not an option if you wanted to survive. Getting proper care meant being demanding, pulling strings, etc. In my local ER, they are used to this, and demanding patients are considered par for the course. The staff is used to it, and several are Russian themselves. In an area with more passive patients, they would be more likely to stick out. Same thing with other groups - aside from the linguistic issues, my husband has helped some Israeli patients who didn't really know or trust the Canadian medical system. They trusted him, he was really straightforward with them, and he got compliance. If someone comes from a place where corruption is endemic, it can be hard to believe that the system is any different here. I remember hubby's uncle simply assuming that we must be making money under the table from bribes. [This can work the other way too with medical care - patients that come from cultures, including Canadian WASPs, that are more reserved and stoic can sometimes be overlooked. If staff are used to patients that scream over every little thing, they can miss the fact that the middle-age lady quietly mentioning that she has bad pain is actually having a recurrence of breast cancer, or that the quiet guy who is "upset that his marriage is ending but is dealing with it" will actually kill himself.]

[Evilbad]

After the whole habibekindheart debacle, I admit I'm pretty much of the frame of mind that parents who scream and cry about the evil CPS are trying to detract from what is really going on.

Not always right, I'll admit, and I'm happy when I'm wrong (as happy as you can be about any situation like that) but it just really jaded me. Same with the one that was posted about recently, with the baby who was removed by the couple who were essentially homeless. Kayla and Checkers?

[happy atheist]

God's Knickers, what a nightmare and the worst thing is that your child had to suffer needlessly.

Your poor son!

My dog had a devolving accident, so I know what it looks like (and I agree that you don't want to do an image search). I can't imagine if it had been my child, and then everything else on top of that.

[artmama]

After the whole habibekindheart debacle, I admit I'm pretty much of the frame of mind that parents who scream and cry about the evil CPS are trying to detract from what is really going on.

Not always right, I'll admit, and I'm happy when I'm wrong (as happy as you can be about any situation like that) but it just really jaded me. Same with the one that was posted about recently, with the baby who was removed by the couple who were essentially homeless. Kayla and Checkers?

Another LJ'er! I did feel genuinely bad for her when her son died in foster care.

I never did figure out the deal with her, honestly. I have a few friends who are friends with her on LJ and now FB, reasonable people even, which makes me wonder what sort of story she is telling now. I agree that she doth protest too much.

Seeing her comments on mutual friends posts, she seems innocuous, and then I remember she has had 10 children taken away because of neglect, etc.

[VaSportsMom]

Godsnickers, I am so sorry for what you and your family went through. It is beyond the pale that anyone in the medical field would treat and child and their family so callously.

A little over a year ago we went through 9 weeks of hell trying to get my youngest treated, for what I knew was his gall bladder. Nobody wanted to believe me because he was only 11. He spent more time in the ER than in school until I finally took him out of the area. A HIDA Scan eventually showed that his GB was functioning at under 4%. After going rounds with 1 surgeon that refused to remove it because it could cause him to have "loose stools later" (vs the horrific pain, severe vomiting and constant dehydration he was currently dealing with) we finally found a pediatric surgeon that scheduled him in for the next day and removed it. He has to watch what he eats now because certain foods do cause cramping and loose stools but at least he is able to function and not having a 3rd slice of pizza or piece of fried chicken isn't likely to kill him. We were lucky that doctors did at least acknowledge that there was a problem and were ordering test after test to find it but if they had listened to me it would have saved a lot if time, money and pain.

[GodsKnickers]

We tried our best to be compliant and do everything we were told. We made every effort to work with the multiple teams of doctors we were dealing with. We were at the hospital for appointments sometimes 3x/week. We asked more than once if it was possible to co-ordinate appointments on the same days so that we weren't making an hour drive in and back home again, multiple times a week but it was always 'yeah well that doesn't work for us' and then we'd get lots of 'well you should really be doing this, or really be doing that' - well sure, there was a lot of things we really should be doing but y'all aren't making it easy for us to do anything - gas isn't cheap, parking fees are crazy, and we're down to one wage. All this stuff, all these meds you want the kid to be on and we should really being doing these 400 things? Were they going to pay for it? Of course not.

We tried it their way for months and months. It finally took me absolutely losing my shit on them a few times, to get anywhere. We even approached a private patient advocacy group in the area (BabyFullofSin might be familiar with it, since the impetus behind its formation was all over our news for a while) for help but they were about as much help as tits on an almond and it's since become apparent that the founder is mostly about getting his name in the news and the group really does shit all. I had made sure to educate myself all along, but I redoubled my efforts when the patient advocacy thing didn't pan out. All we heard from them was 'well it isn't cancer' and not word one about whether they could help us or not.

When I mentioned to the resident that morning, that I had been seriously thinking of removing my child from the hospital for failure to treat, they got pretty wiggy - 'you can't do that! You have to ask first!' - yeah, no I don't. You aren't doing anything!! Fack that shit. They watched us like hawks after that. Some hospitals/facilities/doctors/staff get some pretty weird ideas about the kids belonging to them, or at least that's the way it sure as hell comes across once you're in there. It's hard to put into words how it all feels, but there is sometimes just something there. In hindsight, we really should have taken our child to the other children's hospital in the province. I know we would have gotten better care.

This hospital, here, I don't trust as far as I can throw it. First there was the lack of immediate communication over the overdose. Then, about 4 months after the fall hospitalizations, it came to light that a male nurse had been charged with molestation of two patients. One occurence had happened a year previous and was brought to the hospital's attention at that point, yet the man was not discharged. In that first case, the family were recent immigrants and spoke English poorly and I think the hospital thought it could sweep it under the rug. In September, the month before we ended back up in the hospital, he was caught at it again, and this time, the family raised hell. Here's the kicker. The hospital said that it had relieved the nurse of duty the instant the second allegation came to light. Except they didn't. He was on duty the first week in October when we ended up in there. We all remember him clear as day. There are very few male nurses and so they tend to stand out - on top of that, he had a very unusual look, and mannerisms that also made him stand out. So we recalled him very well. The hospital lied through their teeth about relieving him of duty in September. We didn't seem him the second time around in October but we were on a completely different floor that time around. He very easily could have still been working at that point.

We saw so much bullshit when we were there. So much politics, so much jockeying and backstabbing. We experienced it first hand, when our rheumatologist wanted a specific treatment for our child, during the December hospitalization and the second he left the hospital to fly out to a conference, the junior rheumatologist was in there trying to tell us they thought he was full of beans and they didn't want to do the treatment. She left our room in a hurry at that point, and the treatment was started later that night, per our rheumatologist's wishes/treatment plan. I wasn't 'sweet' about my response when she pulled that shit.

There were so many things. A problem with the PICC line snapping and having to go to the hospital to have it removed and not getting home until 3 am, and being told before we left the hospital, to be back there at 9 am, to have it reinserted, a process that takes place in the OR here. We sat around all day, not hearing anything, completely exhausted, and the Infectious Diseases office kicked us out of there at 3 because, and I quote directly, 'well we haven't heard anything and it's Friday and we have weekend plans and there's only you waiting to hear anything, so we're closing the office an hour early, so you'll have to wait in the cafeteria.'

We sat there until after 6, when I happened to run into the head of Peds in the hallway and cornered him about it and he went and found out some information about it. The doc that replaced the PICC line was so livid about the whole thing that he filed a formal complaint about it. He spent the entire hour and a bit, in the OR, apologizing to my child for everything.

All kinds of shit like that. And yet everyone raves about the place. We can't stand it. We sometimes flip the bird at the TV when one of their commercials comes on. I could spend HOURS telling you the fuckery that went on, the piss poor care, the outright stupidity. I finally started pushing back. Sometimes the care went better, sometimes it didn't - but even when it didn't improve, at least it didn't get worse - the 'baseline' remained the same. I was always worried that pushing them would reflect negatively in the care we got, but as I said, it either got better or at least the status quo held, lol.

As someone else said, without more facts, it's hard to say 100% if this was a failure on the part of the hospital or the parents or a jacked up conglomeration on the part of both parties. But from gobs and gobs of experience and in speaking to many many other parents who have experienced problems in the system, my tendency is to lean slightly more toward supporting the parents. I've no problem with saying they were out and out wrong if it's proven to be so but yeah, I'm slightly biased, lol.

[theologygeek]

After the whole habibekindheart debacle, I admit I'm pretty much of the frame of mind that parents who scream and cry about the evil CPS are trying to detract from what is really going on.

Not always right, I'll admit, and I'm happy when I'm wrong (as happy as you can be about any situation like that) but it just really jaded me. Same with the one that was posted about recently, with the baby who was removed by the couple who were essentially homeless. Kayla and Checkers?

Is that the one with the daughter named Sunshine?

[formergothardite]

For someone who claims to just be here to debate, you really don't seem to understand the concept of debating. When you are debating a people, you address what they said to you. The question is, how would shooting/threatening a CPS worker help to get the baby back? It wouldn't. It would lessen the chances of getting the child back. So since your solution lowers the chance of keeping custody of the child, why do it?

I would say that most parents(even the ones horrible abusing children) are not happy with the idea of CPS taking their children. If this idea of yours was legal, well, pretty much any of the abusive parents could claim that they felt their children were being kidnapped and they were just physically defending themselves and their children. Hey, they beat and starve their kids, but they don't view that as abuse so how dare that CPS worker come and take their child. So when CPS shows up to take a child out of what they say is an abusive home, if the parent feels this isn't true, they go through the legal steps to prove that it isn't. They don't shoot the CPS worker unless they are crazy and want to end up in jail. And then CPS will get their kids anyway.

Quoting myself and bumping this back up for the 4th survivor since she wanted to debate this issue and all that.

[bananacat]

I'm curious, what makes you suspicious of the parents story ?

I've never seen a case before where CPS had this much power. 95% of the posts on this very board demonstrate how CPS has too little power. Yes, they vary by jurisdiction but I'm highly doubtful that they can swoop in and take a kid on so little.

Also, this type of exaggeration and denial is very very common among people who don't understand medicine or like to play the victim. It just sounds so much like they are poor persecuted victims who dared to merely question a powerful doctor and society brought wrath upon them. No, it doesn't actually work out that way in reality.

There is more to this story. Whether the parents are intentionally hiding it or truly just don't understand, there is a missing piece.

[Mama Mia]

I've never seen a case before where CPS had this much power. 95% of the posts on this very board demonstrate how CPS has too little power. Yes, they vary by jurisdiction but I'm highly doubtful that they can swoop in and take a kid on so little.

Also, this type of exaggeration and denial is very very common among people who don't understand medicine or like to play the victim. It just sounds so much like they are poor persecuted victims who dared to merely question a powerful doctor and society brought wrath upon them. No, it doesn't actually work out that way in reality.

There is more to this story. Whether the parents are intentionally hiding it or truly just don't understand, there is a missing piece.

I work in social services and frequently work with families involved with CPS, and with CPS workers.

90 - 95% of the time it's great that CPS got involved and offered the services they did or removed the children from the home -- but some of the time they really, really screw up. And sometimes they take kids based on the idea that a professional third party MUST be right, and the parent MUST be wrong or lying.

I think people really underestimate the trauma to kids involved in being forcibly removed even temporarily from their parents. Often the attitude seems to be that it will all get sorted out eventually, and the parents can always get the kid back if they complete whatever plan the social worker sets up, without even thinking about the trauma of the out-of-home placement itself.

Like I said, in the vast majority of cases CPS involvement is appropriate - but there is still a significant percentage where they really screw up - sometimes by not getting involved when they should, but often by stepping in when they have no business doing so.

I think the reasons we don't see more fundie's involved in the CPS system is 1) They tend to live in areas where severe corporal punishment is more the norm . 2) They are generally rural - and people in rural settings are not as visible for reporting - even more true if they home-school 3) They "look" like nice, normal two-parent white families. And CPS gets less involved with nice, normal two-parent white parents. It's not the way it should be - but look at any statistic, and if there is a racial/ethnic minority group in an area - they will be over represented in CPS involvement.

[Rosa]

I don't underestimate the trauma - my friends who came up through foster care are all working to reform the system now, because they got into shitty foster care homes. But they all came from WORSE original homes.

But the courts (and legal and funding reform) are the main check on CPS. Even though it's traumatic to have to go through the process. Guns are certainly not the answer to the problems in child services, and neither is abolishing or defuning them.

[Just Not Good]

I work in social services and frequently work with families involved with CPS, and with CPS workers.

90 - 95% of the time it's great that CPS got involved and offered the services they did or removed the children from the home -- but some of the time they really, really screw up. And sometimes they take kids based on the idea that a professional third party MUST be right, and the parent MUST be wrong or lying.

I think people really underestimate the trauma to kids involved in being forcibly removed even temporarily from their parents. Often the attitude seems to be that it will all get sorted out eventually, and the parents can always get the kid back if they complete whatever plan the social worker sets up, without even thinking about the trauma of the out-of-home placement itself.

Like I said, in the vast majority of cases CPS involvement is appropriate - but there is still a significant percentage where they really screw up - sometimes by not getting involved when they should, but often by stepping in when they have no business doing so.

I think the reasons we don't see more fundie's involved in the CPS system is 1) They tend to live in areas where severe corporal punishment is more the norm . 2) They are generally rural - and people in rural settings are not as visible for reporting - even more true if they home-school 3) They "look" like nice, normal two-parent white families. And CPS gets less involved with nice, normal two-parent white parents. It's not the way it should be - but look at any statistic, and if there is a racial/ethnic minority group in an area - they will be over represented in CPS involvement.

When you have rural families who homeschool and aren't particularly likely to seek standard medical treatment, the number of mandatory reporters seeing that family diminishes to the point of vanishing. No mandatory reporters, no CPS investigation. It makes sense that there have been very few fundie CPS investigations, even in areas (like the Arizona Strip, historically) where everyone absolutely knows that abuse is occurring.

[laura oz]

THat is disgusting. It happens way too much because the CPS has too much power. There was a case locally this weekend whre a 2 yr old was found wondering a busy highway after wscaping through a bedroom window. The family had done all they could to child-proof the home. Guess what happened? Yep The child was taken. These things happen. Some children are smart no matter what you do to ocntain them. THey look fo rnay excuse to rip a child from a home instead of helping the family and other kids who really need help.

My son popped out his screen and he and his sister wandered off about 2 months ago while I was in the bathroom. I flipped and called 911, and thankfully they were found down the street. The police officer who came to my house was one of the kindest people I have ever met. I was a basket case, and he was so kind to me. Then when the other cop brought my kids home about 15 l-o-n-g minutes later, he was a cruel jerk. I thanked him profusely for finding them, and told him all the thoughts/fears that had been churning in my brain, and he told me that I should have them taken away because I was neglecting them. We had done all we could to child proof -even putting nails in the windows 1/4 way up to keep him from raising it all the way- and I never thought having to relieve myself could be classified as neglect. The other officer talked over him pretty loudly and sharply to say they were just glad they were found and safe. I'm not sure who pulled into my driveway after the were brought home because the first officer went over and spoke to them and I couldn't hear what was said, but I'd bet anything it was CPS. I don't know what he said to them, but they just backed out of the driveway and I never have heard anything about it again from any official. Being called a neglectful mother cut me to the bone because I'm not, and I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.

When my husband and I talked about it later that night and I described what the jerk cop looked like, all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Turns out that the water treatment plant my husband is designing and building for a large company was on land the jerk's family owned. Even though they were paid for the land the plant is being built on, they consider it stolen from them and he and his mom had been to see my husband about it. He recognized the name and the address and it was him trying to get even. Cops can use their power to try to settle scores. I'm sure I'm not the first or last person to realize this, but it did and does scare me when I think about how badly things could have turned out.