Mom of Sick Connecticut Teen 'Collapses' in Court After Judge Sends Kid to Foster Care

[magical thyme]

43. everything I've read on it says they did take her for no good reason.

and everything I've read says they finally released her only because of the costs of her ongoing care.

"Somatoform Disorder" is not really a valid diagnosis, imo, based on everything I've read about it and everything I understand about science and diagnostics. Not being able to identify a physical cause in no way means there is no physical cause, let alone demonstrate a psychological hypothesis. Plenty of illnesses were "somatoform disorders"...until they suddenly weren't. Hell, my mother's ulcers were "stress-induced" until a valiant Australian doctor proved that Helicbacter pylori most certainly can survive the acid in your stomach.

Her condition is improved after a year in their care, according to Children's records, because now she can lock and unlock her wheelchair. That is not a significant improvement, imo.

The Globe articles aren't limited to the parent's opinions. Dr. Kormen's interview is quite illuminating and makes it clear he was completely shut out of her care, despite his numerous efforts to set up round tables to work with their psychiatric dept. for a comprehensive treatment program. It is not the parent's opinion that the Children's doctors who made the calls are young and inexperienced.

And why, when she clearly has gastrointestinal issues, has Children's prevented their on gastroenterologist who also happened to have treated her for 2 years while he was still at Tufts, from examining her? Why did they not even consult their own doctors? That smacks of interdepartmental political warfare. Anybody who think that doesn't exist in large hospitals (or even small ones) is living in la-la land. I face those battles in the bottom level trenches every day at work in the lab.

I also found, last night, a scan of a sheet of paper that was either a very good forgery of an internal Children's document or a clear HIPAA violation. It was on Children's letterhead and outlined her treatment program, spelling out what treatments prescribed by Tuft's were going to be dropped, and other details of her treatment that were, quite frankly, awful. I wish now I'd bookmarked, because search as I might, I haven't been able to find it all morning. If and when I do, I intend to post it here. The only people who would have had access were either Children's employees or possibly involved in the court case -- somebody 'in the know' had to have leaked this and at significant risk to themselves.

The fact is that young, inexperienced doctors at Children's disputed the diagnosis, withheld the medication that had helped Justina for 2 years, and then didn't like the way the parents behaved.

They accused the parents of 'medical child abuse' for following Tuft's treatment program, and brought in DHS, who has close ties to Children's. Those are facts.

I don't like the way the parents behaved either, and as I read those descriptions, and I suspected immediately what happened. But however much they didn't approve of the parents behavior, that didn't give them the right to shut out her doctors of the prior 2 years and that didn't give them the right to grab control of her like that.