Hospital Holds West Hartford Girl For 9 Months After Parents Argue Diagnosis

[alp227]

This story is getting hyped by the alt-med and wingnut web:

Fox CT spent the past few months investigating the emotional case.

It has been a bitter custody battle, and nine months after it started, it’s still going on.

In December 2012, Justina Pelletier was an active 15-year-old girl who would go ice skating, laughed and spent time with her family.

Justina was diagnosed with mitochondrial disease a few years ago. It’s a genetic disorder that can cause loss of muscle coordination and weakness.

Despite that diagnosis she lived a normal life.

But last February, she also got the flu and was admitted to Boston Children’s Hospital to see her specialist.

Almost immediately, a different team of doctors delivered a different diagnosis, questioning the original diagnosis of mitochondrial disease.

“They came in, and they said we cannot take Justina out of the hospital. They called DCF,” says Linda Pelletier, Justina’s mother.

They said Justina had “somatoform disorder.”

In short, they were saying she suffered from a mental illness, not mitochondrial disease.

Her parents, Lou and Linda Pelletier, were escorted out of the hospital by security, and within four days, they lost custody of Justina.

(WTIC, the Fox station in Hartford, CT, is owned by Tribune Media not the Fox network parent company News Corporation. Tribune also owns the Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV/AM. So don't consider this source "Fox News".)

[enlightenment]

1. Assuming that she does have a somatoform disorder,

why is she still in the hospital? If DCF wants to keep her away from her parents, they should be able to do that without essentially imprisoning her. And why hasn't this made it before a judge by now?

There's a whole lot of this story that isn't being told.

[haele]

2. Really? Lost custody over a mental condition that seemed to be managed?

If it was somatoform disorder, the girl seems to have been functioning - she had the flu and went to see her doctor, who had made the original mitochondrial diagnosis. She still had the flu, even if the diagnosis was questionable and revised to somatoform disorder. No reason to keep her past whatever tests they might have run to verify their diagnosis.

If it was a mitochondrial disease and she had the flu, she might have to have been hospitalized for a few days for stabilization and observation, but still - she should have been released.

If the hospital suspected abuse or some other bad parenting, then they would be in family court.

Why is she being held by the hospital? Is it some weird experiment gone wrong, and some shadowy cabal of Jedi Werewolves have taken her off for some sort of special rehabilitory training to allow her to return to society, and whatever is in the hospital bed is a clone?

What is the backlog in family court? Is the hospital attempting to wring every penny they can from the insurance company and family? Is there some sort of back bill where they hadn't been paying anything, and the hospital is holding their daughter until they cough up what they owe?

Weird, to say the least.

Haele