Another Medical Kidnapping

[Hell...Hath...No...Fury..]

Amazing news!!!! Haven't read full article yet but so pleased for them. Can't imagine the relief they must be feeling right now.

Nice to hear that some disgraceful situations are resolved.... Eventually. But the damage caused to them through this farce will stay with them for life.

Off to read it now, praying there's no sinister undertones to this and its a straightforward release

 

[leela]

oh thank heavens she's back home! what a relief! let's hope the same for karina...

 

[alex3619]

You are assuming that ME people always have someone else to rely on and care for them, not all do thou.. childen do have somene to care for them and t try to get others to do the right thing (a parent of a child will keep fighting for justice), adults often dont.

I occasionally hear reports of ME patients dying from this. I also hear reports of ME patients in this position ... then the reports stop. Resolution unknown.

 

[alex3619]

Repeating the link: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...ned-parents/mDWtuGURNawSuObO0pDX4J/story.html

In a two-page order issued Tuesday, Judge Joseph Johnston dismissed the child-protection case against Justina’s parents, Linda and Lou Pelletier, arguing that they and others had shown “credible evidence that circumstances have changed” since his decision to place Justina in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. He also wrote that in the month since Justina was moved to a residential facility in Thompson, Conn., her parents “have been cooperative and engaged in services,” including individual therapy for Justina and family therapy.

This is a great good wrapped up in a thin layer of unknown risk. Engaging in cooperate therapy? What kind of therapy? What limitations are on it?

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...her-parents/c6ETPN6UaIDLiPNHwJOZUM/story.html

The individual education plan includes small group and individual classroom instruction, occupational therapy, speech/language therapy, physical therapy, and individual counseling.

This still leaves the door open to bad treatment.

That team will consist of hospital representatives from various specialties and disciplines knowledgeable about the terrain, but who have not been involved in the case in question.

Again, this could be good, bad or useless.

 

[Valentijn]

Regardless of the child protection agency's future plans, Justina and her family are now completely free to engage in proper medical treatment and stay far away from the psycho(somatic)babblers. Though hopefully she can find a good psychologist to help her deal with the trauma of what's happened, when she's ready for it.

Most of the stuff the judge said was basically to avoid admitting he'd made a HUGE mistake. You do not take children away because you're annoyed by the way parents are behaving. Hopefully he and various private and government institutions have learned a lesson from their horribly mistakes.

And hopefully Justina's family sues the hell out of the hospital now that they're in a safe position from which to do so. It's the only way some people learn, when it comes out of their pockets.

 

[IreneF]

It wasn't the hospital who made the decision to remove Justina from her parents' custody. It was the Mass. Dept. of Children and Families (DCF) and ultimately the judge. However, the DCF has a close relationship with Children's Hospital.

So far we've heard only from the parents. I'd really like to hear from the other side. How did they justify what they did?

 

[Valentijn]

So far we've heard only from the parents. I'd really like to hear from the other side. How did they justify what they did?

They can't justify it, so they'll say nothing and claim their silence is to protect patient confidentiality. Usually while finding a way to insinuate the family and patient were nuts.

The only way any further info will be forthcoming from DCF or the hospital is if there's a lawsuit.

 

[A.B.]

It's unfortunate that the quacks behind this tragedy have gotten away unscathed.

Remember: this all started with a psychiatrist, who in 20 minutes decided that Justina didn't have a mitochondrial disease but a somatoform disorder, and that the best course of action was to deny her treatment for mitochondrial disease, and lock her up away from her family.

 

[Sidereal]

If I recall correctly, it was a psychologist (i.e., a person with no medical training) interested in research into "somatoform disorders" who made the determination during an interview that Justina didn't have a mitochondrial disease. Psychiatrists went to medical school and are (at least in theory) capable of occasionally spotting organic disease when such patients are mistakenly referred to them.

 

[Nielk]

It wasn't the hospital who made the decision to remove Justina from her parents' custody. It was the Mass. Dept. of Children and Families (DCF) and ultimately the judge. However, the DCF has a close relationship with Children's Hospital.

So far we've heard only from the parents. I'd really like to hear from the other side. How did they justify what they did?

Wasn't it the hospital who called in the DCF to begin with?

 

[Valentijn]

If I recall correctly, it was a psychologist (i.e., a person with no medical training) interested in research into "somatoform disorders" who made the determination during an interview that Justina didn't have a mitochondrial disease. Psychiatrists went to medical school and are (at least in theory) capable of occasionally spotting organic disease when such patients are mistakenly referred to them.

It was a neurologist, but yes, with a grant to research mythical medical disorders.

 

[Sidereal]

According to this article:

As soon as Simona Bujoreanu entered Justina’s room the next day, Linda liked the 39-year-old psychologist’s bubbly personality.

Yet the psychologist quickly began to form her own doubts about both the mother and her daughter’s mito diagnosis. When she later documented her impressions from that first day, Bujoreanu noted that Justina appeared to be more impaired when her mother was around. During an examination that Monday afternoon, when Justina stuttered and struggled to articulate simple words such as cracker, Bujoreanu wrote, “mother was reacting at the bedside, making statements such as ‘See, what is that?’ or ‘Why is this happening?’ ”

As to the latter question, records show that Bujoreanu appeared to be homing in on an answer: a condition called somatoform (or somatization) disorder. As Bujoreanu explained in a 2011 review article that she co-wrote for a medical journal, “somatization is the process whereby distress is experienced as physical symptoms.”

The idea is these psychosomatic symptoms are real, but there is usually no underlying organic or physical cause. Instead, the cause is psychiatric. “The most prevalent somatic symptoms in children and adolescents are pain, fatigue, and gastrointestinal problems,” she wrote.

In contrast to the way the Tufts doctors had been treating Justina for more than a year, Bujoreanu decided Justina’s case was primarily a psychiatric one.

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

 

[IreneF]

Wasn't it the hospital who called in the DCF to begin with?

The hospital called in the DCF, but it doesn't have the formal power to remove a child from parental care.

 

[A.B.]

http://www.healthgrades.com/provider/i-simona-bujoreanu-yftwr

She seems to be getting extremely low ratings. I wonder if this is the backlash from the Justina story, or if she is a repeat offender.

 

[Sidereal]

That (very lengthy) Boston Globe article I linked to says that this psychologist was also heavily involved in a similar case where a child with PANDAS was sectioned in the same psychiatric ward.

 

[barbc56]

The individual education plan includes small group and individual classroom instruction, occupational therapy, speech/language therapy, physical therapy, and individual counseling.

This still leaves the door open to bad treatment

.

The wording is keeping within the legal requirement for any child with special needs to have what is called an IEP by Public Law 94-142.

This can also lead to appropriate treatment but not guaranteed either way.

Barb

 

[natasa778]

interview with Justina
http://foxct.com/2014/06/18/justina-pelletier-leaves-facility-for-family-home-in-west-hartford/

 

[taniaaust1]

They can't justify it, so they'll say nothing and claim their silence is to protect patient confidentiality. Usually while finding a way to insinuate the family and patient were nuts.

The only way any further info will be forthcoming from DCF or the hospital is if there's a lawsuit.

That's what I think too.. for them to admit they were wrong, automatically would basically cause her family to win a law suit against them. So they just arent going to do that and will try to make it look like things were all proper.

 

[taniaaust1]

Sounds like they sure helped her didnt they **being sarcastic**

"
Eighteen months ago Justina was figure skating but now here legs won’t work, so father Lou, had to carry her inside their home Wednesday.
He then addressed the hoard of media outside.
“We have a whole new battle now in the transition of bringing Justina back to where she was before,” said Lou Pelletier "

Read more: http://foxct.com/local-news/investigations/stories/hospital-holds-west-hartford-girl-for-9-months/#ixzz352vZkRII

Then Justina sat down with Fox CT for a one on one exclusive conversation about the past 16 months in the custody of a different state.

Beau Berman: “How does it feel to be back?”

Justina Pelletier: “Awesome!”

Beau Berman: “It feels good?”

Justina Pelletier: “Yeah! It feels so good to be home.”
Justina Pelletier: “I just… I just don’t know how this really happened because it doesn’t feel like it’s real.”

Beau Berman: “You were gone a LONG time.”

Justina Pelletier: “I know! A long time, a long 16 months.”

Fox CT asked Justina about her time at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“It was crazy oh my gosh. I didn’t have any support there, they didn’t believe me at all especially at Children’s especially when I got on Bader 5,” said Justina.

Justina says she now wants to help other children.
“I want to help a lot of people. It was hard and tough so I don’t want anyone else to be put through the same thing I got put through.”

But first she’ll undergo intensive physical therapy and rehabilitation.

Her parents say her health deteriorated while the hospital took her off necessary medications.
“I will be walking someday and be running, skating and all this other stuff,” said Justina.

The whole thing makes me feel so angry.

..............

Also Im a bit confused.. didnt one article say there was certain conditions to handing her back to her parents eg her having to attend speach therapy, small classes or education etc etc? or were those condtions dropped? (the other article make it sound like the parents were doing things wrong.. I assume that was she wasnt always going to school maybe due to her health and not having things like speech therapy? etc

I have to wonder thou if there are conditions like that, whether these are really for her best interest at all? (we all know that those who have ME/CFS sometimes miss school and I doubt speach therapy would help one of us.. so does it really help mitochondrial issues if she's exhausted and slurring speech?).

Maybe the judge walked a half way line between the Tuffs and the other hospital IF there are in fact still conditions attached to her being given back to parents.

 

[taniaaust1]

It wasn't the hospital who made the decision to remove Justina from her parents' custody. It was the Mass. Dept. of Children and Families (DCF) and ultimately the judge. However, the DCF has a close relationship with Children's Hospital.

So far we've heard only from the parents. I'd really like to hear from the other side. How did they justify what they did?

It was the hospital thou who reported this case to DCF and also would of spoke to that judge causing the decision which got made to be made. The hospital in a way is just as much to blame as the judge who isnt even a medical person and needs to base decisions on whatever he's been told by the medical people.