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Another Medical Kidnapping

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
The juvenile judge in the long-running Justina Pelletier custody case delayed issuing a ruling Friday on a motion to return the teenager to her Connecticut home.

A lawyer for the girl’s parents and a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, which has had legal custody of Pelletier for more than a year, said the judge sent word that he will instead notify the parties of his decision by the end of the day on Tuesday

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...til-tuesday/bW9RoDrazynxVw575NmtBL/story.html
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
A MIRACLE FOR JUSTINA just posted this on their FB PAGE

Please we need your help immediately!!!
CALL & FILE A COMPLAINT against DCF & Judge Joseph Johnston!!
Here are the correct numbers & direct lines for both! Here is the info for both:

Gail Garringer is the Child Advocate for the state of MASS (617) 979-8360 or toll-free (866) 790-3690

Chief Justice Michael Edgerton, Administrative Office of the Juvenile Court, 3 Center Plaza 7th Floor, Boston MA 02108 phone 617-788-6550

DCF 617.748.2444

Call now & file a complaint! If DCF doesn't call back-keep calling all week until they do!!
 

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
These assholes make me so mad with their constant delays! Don't they get it that every day, every hour, they delay they extend Justina's suffering and fear, and the separation from her friends and family! Screw them and their stupid face-saving politics!
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
WHERE is Gloria Allred?

This is exactly the kind of attorney needed to slap a high profile civil rights lawsuit on all these officially sanctioned abusers. I want to see all their licenses to practice law and medicine revoked, and I want to see some MAJOR jail time.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
I would think this means the situation may not be quite as simplistic as the media is reporting. With all the lawsuit threats, I would think the judge is making sure he is dotting his Is and crossing his Its.

What this delay means as far as the decision going one way or another, I have no idea.

Barb
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
Judges do not make a decision like this lightly.

Justina was at BCH for three months before she entered the psych ward. Three months of testing and being observed. She wasn't wrenched from the ER and immediately put in the psych ward.

We only have the parents side of the story. Do we even know if she was diagnosed with a somataform illness? Even if she unfortunately was, she may still have a mitochondria disorder and a co morbid psychiatric condition not related to a diagnosis of somataform illness.

The psych ward at BCH is for eating disorders and patients who are in danger of hurting themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if the eating disorder is the problem as that often calls for a long hospital stay. I am only speculating here as I simply don't know.

Her medical services are now at Tuffs. Tuffs also reported the parents to family services for refusing mental health services. While it was unfounded my point is that this is not the first time this issue has been brought up.

The doctor at Tuffs says he is not 100% sure Justina has mitochondria disease but it's possible he said this because it's a difficult condition to diagnose and not that she doesn't have it.

Whether or not Justina has mitochondria disease, her mental health could be a separate issue. If the parents refused this and her life was at stake because she was not getting all the services she needed, that is a form of abuse. However, there's usually more occurring than this for the state to take custody.

The hospital, social services as well as the court are not able to talk due to patient confidentially which is an issue taken seriously in the states, especially since HIPPA. That means we don't have their side of the story.

I am just putting in my two cents worth and have no intention of debating this, especially when the debate is about "facts" from the parents.

We have seen other similar cases like this with me/cfs and are very sensitive to this issue. In fact we need to be. But we may not be able to compare them with this case.

I am not doubting that Justina's parents love her but they may be misguided.

We may never know the true facts, but I hope the best for Justina.

Barb
 

Ember

Senior Member
Messages
2,115
Leaked: Four Key Details Directly From Judge’s ‘Huge’ Custody Ruling in Justina Pelletier Case

Mar. 25, 2014 11:01pm
By Jason Howerton
Here are four key details from the document:

4. The judge argues that “credible psychiatric and medical evidence” suggests that Justina Pelletier suffers from a “persistent and severe Somatic Symptom Disorder,” not mitochondrial disease as she was diagnosed with previously.

Justina “is a child in need of care and protection… due to the conduct and inability of her parents, Linda Pelletier and Lou Pelletier, to provide for Justina’s necessary and proper physical, mental, and emotional development,” the ruling states.



3. Justina’s parents “significantly hampered” DCF’s efforts to find a “suitable placement” for the girl, according to the ruling. The parents, obviously, want their daughter to come home with them instead.

“While Justina was at Children’s Hospital, the parents were verbally abusive to Justina’s hospital providers. Family members of other patients complained that Justina’s parents stated their children were being kidnapped by Children’s Hospital,” the ruling says. “They threatened to call the F.B.I. They called hospital personnel “Nazis” and claimed the hospital was punishing and killing Justina.”

The court also accuses the parents of using “profanity” directed at DCF personnel.



2. The judge has determined “placement of Justina in the conditional custody of her parents is not in her best interests at this time.”

Judge Johnston officially ordered Justina into the custody of DCF, “subject to the parties’ right to review and redetermination” six months from the adjudication on Dec. 20, 2013.



1. Psychological and clinical evaluations of Justina’s parents, Lou and Linda Pelletier, are “necessary.”

However, the judge declined to order the evaluations to be conducted by the Boston Juvenile Court Clinic.

“These are evaluations, along with other services, that must be coordinated by the CT DCF for this Connecticut facility,” the order states.

Read the entire document here:

Justina Pelletier ruling
 

Ema

Senior Member
Messages
4,729
Location
Midwest USA
It's been more than a year...if Boston was right about her diagnosis (impossible as doesn't exist but for argument) she should be better. But instead she is worse. Why isn't that enough right there?

Also, if my child had been ripped from me like this, we would still be reading about all the angry things I had said. Truly, it's a great goal to always be calm and reasonable but I don't blame the family for the appropriate expression of anger in this situation. Truly, what is a little bit of name calling in what appears to be a life or death situation?
 

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
So typical of abusers. Go watch the original UK film "gaslight".
Do things that would make any sane person rail and resist, then point to how "unreasonable" and "resistant" they are.

@barbc, I read that the hospital called DCH after three *days*, not three months.

And they still reportedly have not consulted her doctors from Tufts.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
DCF was indeed called after three days but it wasn't until April that she was transferred to the psychiatric ward, unless she was in a different psych ward of the hospital. I will doublecheck this.


In April, doctors told Justina that she was being transferred to Bader 5 — the hospital’s psychiatric ward that focuses on the treatment of seriously troubled children who may pose a risk of harm to themselves or others

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/15/justina/vnwzbbNdiodSD7WDTh6xZI/story.html

Barb
 

Iquitos

Senior Member
Messages
513
Location
Colorado
So typical of abusers. Go watch the original UK film "gaslight".
Do things that would make any sane person rail and resist, then point to how "unreasonable" and "resistant" they are.

@barbc, I read that the hospital called DCH after three *days*, not three months.

And they still reportedly have not consulted her doctors from Tufts.

"Do things that would make any sane person rail and resist, then point to how "unreasonable" and "resistant" they are."

Exactly! I once worked in a State mental hospital where people were incarcerated by fiat, not with any due process. As staff, I had to attend sessions regarding each patient I interacted with. The psychiatrist was a sadist. One man had been put in there because he had threatened violence to his wife, the daughter of the richest people around, and not the man they had wanted her to marry. She, herself, said he had never been violent against her.

This psychiatrist would say things designed to provoke anger from the man and if he responded normally, the pscyhiatrist would say he had to stay another 6 weeks because of anger issues. When he did not respond to the provocation, the shrink would say he had to stay another 6 weeks because he was repressing his normal emotions.

When I left that job the man had already been in there for more than 6 months. His wife testified that her parents were just trying to keep them apart and were pressuring her to divorce him before they let him out.