Monday, March 9, 2015

Medical Kidnapping


Chicago Lurie Children’s Hospital Takes Baby Away From Family for Seeking a Second Opinion, Posted on March 9, 2015 Written by healthimpactnews.com
When Lak­isha Tanna’s infant grand­son was trans­ferred to Lurie Children’s Hos­pi­tal in Chicago, Illi­nois, she thought that he was in the best place he could be to receive the care that he needed for his med­ical con­di­tion. She never dreamed that this choice would even­tu­ally result in her adorable grand­child being what she terms “med­ically kid­napped” more than a year later. On March 12, the fam­ily faces a hear­ing to deter­mine whether Malik, now 2 1/2, will be able to return home to his grand­par­ents who love him, or for­ever become a ward of the state of Illinois.
Read­ers may recall that Lurie Children’s Hos­pi­tal is the same hos­pi­tal that seized cus­tody of teenager Isa­iah Rider, a Mis­souri res­i­dent who was being treated at Lurie for his rare med­ical con­di­tion. Like Isaiah’s mom Michelle, Lak­isha trusted this hos­pi­tal with her child’s life, believ­ing that Lurie was “sup­posed to be a place that has children’s best inter­est at heart.” Fight Rages for Teenager Isa­iah Rider’s Free­dom – His Mother Com­mits “Car­di­nal Sin” Of Ques­tion­ing Doctors
Malik Mitchel was born on July 5, 2012, with a med­ical con­di­tion that resulted in his small intes­tine being sur­gi­cally removed, known as short gut syn­drome. At 6 days of age, his fam­ily trans­ferred him to Lurie, where he would spend the next 8 months. Because of fac­tors related to his seri­ous med­ical needs, the fam­ily made the deci­sion to trans­fer guardian­ship to his grandparents. Lurie Pro­poses That Malik Become a Ward of the State; Grandma Says “No, Thanks”
Shortly after this trans­fer, a social worker from Lurie approached Lak­isha with a pro­posal to make Malik a ward of the state, “putting infer­ences on the ben­e­fits of a finan­cial gain” for his grand­mother, a pro­posal which she promptly declined.
Accord­ing to fed­eral guide­lines, chil­dren who are wards of the state may be enrolled in med­ical research stud­ies with­out their fam­i­lies’ knowl­edge or con­sent. This dis­turb­ing fact came into the light dur­ing the Justina Pel­letier case, where Boston Children’s Hos­pi­tal and Con­necti­cut CPS seized the teenager over a dis­agree­ment about a diagnosis. “Justina’s Law” Seeks to End Exper­i­men­tal Med­ical Research on Chil­dren Seized by Child Pro­tec­tion Services 
At the time, Lak­isha was unaware of the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of his becom­ing a ward of the state; she and her hus­band sim­ply wanted to be there for her grand­son, and pro­vide him with the love and care that fam­ily can pro­vide bet­ter than any stranger or insti­tu­tion. That is what fam­i­lies are for and have been since the begin­ning of human history. Malik is very loved by his fam­ily. Source: For the love of Malik Face­book page.
Malik was dis­charged from Lurie on March 18, 2013, and was sent home with an in-home nurse. Another nurse came by weekly to draw labs. Dur­ing this time, Lak­isha switched pedi­a­tri­cians to one who was closer to her home. He was receiv­ing all of his nutri­tion via IV (TPN). He bat­tled bouts of diar­rhea, and his weight fre­quently fluctuated. Lurie Calls Child Abuse/Neglect Hot­line Over Appoint­ment Missed Because of Car Trouble
In July, Lak­isha missed a sched­uled appoint­ment with a GI doc­tor she says because her car broke down. A social worker from the hos­pi­tal, Joanne Sin­gle­ton, phoned DCFS (child pro­tec­tive ser­vices), report­ing her to the abuse and neglect hot­line. Appar­ently there were some abnor­mal lab results that they had planned to address dur­ing the appointment.
Malik was later admit­ted to the hos­pi­tal, where he was taken off the TPN due to increased risks with long-term use. A G-tube feed­ing tube was inserted. Later, Lak­isha learned that the alleged abnor­mal labs were unfounded.
Despite the change in his feed­ing plan, he still suf­fered from diar­rhea off and on. Lak­isha reports that the for­mula they place him on was dif­fi­cult for him to tol­er­ate. How­ever, when she tried to make sug­ges­tions about his nutri­tional issues and care, it seemed to her that the staff took offense rather than try­ing to work with them.
Warn­ing about Lurie - Lak­isha reports that a DCFS inves­ti­ga­tor told her at this time “to be care­ful,” because “they receive a lot of calls from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hos­pi­tal on minor­ity fam­i­lies.” Lak­isha holds a Master’s degree in social work, and is a hos­pi­tal social worker her­self, but she had no idea what she was about to face in her bat­tle to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble care for her lit­tle boy.
Mis­taken Report Leads to Hospitalization - After the last hos­pi­tal dis­charge the num­ber of in-home nurs­ing hours were reduced from 98 hours per week to 56, and a dif­fer­ent agency pro­vided the ser­vices. On Octo­ber 24, 2013, Lak­isha received a call to bring Malik in to Lurie Hos­pi­tal imme­di­ately, due to weight loss reported by the nurs­ing agency. Though it was late in the day, she took him in. He was weighed and labs were drawn. He had a weight loss of almost a pound and a half. How­ever, this was a far cry from the report which prompted the urgent call. The coor­di­na­tor at the in-home nurs­ing agency had allegedly reported a weight loss of 6 to 7 pounds!
Despite the obvi­ous mis­take, they insisted on admit­ting Malik to the hos­pi­tal. Lak­isha reports that this was quite con­fus­ing to her. She asked for an admit­ting diag­no­sis, but no one could ever tell her why he was being admit­ted. The next day, fur­ther tests were ordered “which didn’t make any sense,” but she agreed to them. Every­thing came back within nor­mal lim­its. Still, Malik remained hospitalized.
Request for Sec­ond Opin­ion Denied; Cus­tody Seized - By this point in Malik’s short life, he had already been sub­jected to 4 surg­eries, but he still had repeated issues with his weight fluc­tu­at­ing. Lak­isha expressed her con­cerns about the care he was receiv­ing and asked to get a sec­ond opin­ion. She began talk­ing about trans­fer­ring his care to another hos­pi­tal. The right to seek a sec­ond opin­ion and bet­ter treat­ment options are con­cepts which have long been assumed by the Amer­i­can pub­lic to be both the right and the respon­si­bil­ity of par­ents. How­ever, much like Michelle Rider and the Pel­letiers, Lak­isha learned that some hos­pi­tals do not see it the same way.
When Lak­isha got to the hos­pi­tal to visit her grand­son on Decem­ber 5, she was shocked to find that Lurie had restricted her from vis­i­ta­tion. She says that a social worker walked her to Malik’s room to kiss him good-bye, but she was not per­mit­ted to stay to visit. The next day, DCFS seized cus­tody of Malik, cit­ing med­ical neglect.
It was not until Christ­mas Eve that she was finally able to visit him again, under super­vi­sion. On Decem­ber 26, Lak­isha received a voice­mail that DCFS had made the deci­sion to “indi­cate” her, mean­ing that they would put her on an abuse and neglect reg­istry. She reports that she was not able to make any kind of defense or par­tic­i­pate in the tele­phone con­fer­ence call where the deci­sion was made.
Malik Ready to Be Dis­charged, then Has Surgery - Though a DCFS worker allegedly stated to the court on Decem­ber 6 that Malik was med­ically ready for dis­charge from the hos­pi­tal, Lurie sched­uled him for surgery on Jan­u­ary 15, 2014. Lak­isha was not told why he needed the surgery, nor did she give her con­sent. She was not even per­mit­ted to be present for her grandson’s surgery. It was only later that Lak­isha learned that the pro­ce­dure was for a bowel block­age. Even so, Malik con­tin­ued to expe­ri­ence prob­lems with weight fluc­tu­a­tions after going into state custody.
Later, the judge in the case allegedly asked why the surgery was done, but the GAL (Guardian ad Litem) was unable to explain it. Lak­isha reports that she tes­ti­fied that she had learned that it was for a bowel block­age. He allegedly said that it sounded like it had a bio­log­i­cal cause, unre­lated to any­thing that the grand­mother had done.
Because Malik is a child with seri­ous med­ical needs, the Tan­nas sus­pect that some of the “unin­formed exper­i­men­ta­tion pro­ce­dures” that Malik has been sub­jected to are part of the rea­son that he was taken from them in the first place. A num­ber of activists study­ing the prob­lem of med­ical kid­nap­ping have repeat­edly asserted that chil­dren like Malik, with med­ically com­plex issues, are cash cows to the sys­tem and to the hos­pi­tals involved.
Deal­ing with the System - Malik’s time is alter­nated between Lurie Children’s Hos­pi­tal, Almost Home Kids – a tran­si­tional facil­ity owned by Lurie, and a fos­ter home with strangers.
At one point Malik’s Guardian ad Litem filed a motion which would have iso­lated the baby from any con­tact with any fam­ily mem­bers or friends besides his grand­par­ents, but the request was denied.
How­ever, Lak­isha has been pro­hib­ited from attend­ing Malik’s doc­tors appoint­ments, despite a court order to the con­trary. Joanne Sin­gle­ton, a Lurie social worker has allegedly placed a restric­tion for­bid­ding Malik’s grand­mother to come to Lurie or Almost Home Kids unless she is accom­pa­nied by a DCFS social worker. The restric­tion remains even though a copy of the court order has been pro­vided to both facilities.
Even though Lak­isha has lim­ited vis­i­ta­tion rights to see her baby, even those vis­its have been spo­radic, some­times can­celled due to lack of a worker to super­vise, sick­ness of the worker, sick­ness of the baby, or unavail­abil­ity of the fos­ter fam­ily. This is very dif­fi­cult emo­tion­ally for the family.
Lurie has allegedly not been happy with the fos­ter par­ents either. When the fos­ter mother ques­tioned the for­mula that Lurie had pre­scribed, she took Malik to a GI spe­cial­ist at another hos­pi­tal for a sec­ond opin­ion. She actu­ally did what Lak­isha has merely talked about doing. Some­one at Lurie allegedly became very angry and called the child abuse hot­line on the fos­ter mother. She is now allegedly under investigation.
Court Rul­ing in October - Accord­ing to Lak­isha, a DCFS worker filed a par­ent­ing report stat­ing that Malik would be bet­ter off with a stay-at-home mom than Lak­isha, because she works. This, despite the fact that Malik has in-home nurs­ing care when he is with the Tan­nas. She states that the report also says, “me want­ing a sec­ond opin­ion was just a sign that I was in denial of Malik’s con­di­tion.” (Note: with Michelle Rider, her request for a sec­ond opin­ion for Isa­iah was seen as a sign that she was guilty of Mun­chausen by Proxy.)
The adju­di­ca­tion hear­ings have ended and the judge ruled against Lak­isha on Octo­ber 15, 2014, allegedly stat­ing that he would have to go with the opin­ion of the expert wit­ness. There was no evi­dence of abuse pre­sented. Accord­ing to Lak­isha, this expert wit­ness was a Child Abuse Spe­cial­ist from Lurie, Dr. Norell Rosado – a doc­tor that she had never even seen. He allegedly stated that Malik wasn’t behav­ing like a nor­mal child; how­ever, the tim­ing that he saw Malik was when he was very sick with diar­rhea. The judge allegedly cited neglect because Lak­isha failed to take Malik for a follow-up visit with the pedi­a­tri­cian. She states that she was not per­mit­ted to give her sim­ple expla­na­tion in court: that Malik had been read­mit­ted to Lurie for a 3 week hos­pi­tal stay at the time the follow-up was sup­posed to occur.
Final Hear­ing Sched­uled for March 12 - There is one final chance for Lak­isha to get her grand­son back, or lose him for­ever. A dis­po­si­tional hear­ing is sched­uled for Thurs­day, March 12, at 1:30 pm at the Juve­nile Deten­tion Cen­ter, 1100 S. Hamil­ton, Chicago. Sup­port­ers are invited to come and show sup­port for the family.
A pre­vi­ous dis­po­si­tional hear­ing was con­tin­ued because no plan for going for­ward could be agreed upon. Malik’s Guardian ad Litem and the State Attor­ney are “fight­ing to make Malik a Ward of the State of Illi­nois,” while Lakisha’s attor­ney and DCFS sup­port Malik being returned to his home with his grandparents.
Regard­ing the hear­ing, Lak­isha states: “This is final for me and as a grand­mother I was told that I have no legal rights to Malik. There­fore if the Judge doesn’t rule in my favor, I would lose him to the sys­tem for­ever. So I don’t know what to do besides con­tinue to fight back and pray.”
Lak­isha was recently a guest on “The Cap­tain,” a blogtalk radio show. Her heart­break­ing story may be heard here.
In a strange twist of con­nec­tion, Michelle Rider’s final hear­ing for her son Isa­iah Rider, also in Chicago, also taken by DCFS and Lurie Children’s Hos­pi­tal, is the day before Lak­isha and Malik’s hear­ing. Lakisha’s pow­er­ful words speak not only for her fam­ily, but also for the Rid­ers, and for every other fam­ily whose child has been taken away from them for dis­agree­ing with doc­tors and seek­ing a sec­ond opinion:
“Mak­ing a child a ward of the state that comes from a good, lov­ing home that cares for him, to be lost in a sys­tem and sep­a­rated from his fam­ily is not in the BEST INTEREST of the child. In the midst of try­ing to find a solu­tion for my child’s health prob­lems, this insti­tu­tion [Lurie Children’s Hos­pi­tal] has caused me and my fam­ily noth­ing but great pain, grief, and stress.”
Bruce Rauner is the Gov­er­nor of the State of Illi­nois, and may be reached at  217–782-0244 or  312–814-2121, and con­tacted here. The Tan­nas State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive is Mar­cus C. Evans, Jr. He may be reached at  217–782-8272 , and con­tacted here. Donne E. Trot­ter is their Sen­a­tor, and he may be reached at  217–782-3201, and con­tacted here.
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