Comment by itsmemattchung
2 years ago
> As a precautionary measure, the hospital followed mandatory reporting statutes and my wife and I temporarily lost custody of David. Thanks to our incredibly effective defense lawyer, we were cleared of all charges within two months, during which we stayed at the hospital 24/7 with David until we sorted out the legal procedures.
Holy shit. Parents bring baby to ER ... results reveal that baby was shaken (article later confirms this was not the case) ... parents lose custody for 2 months. Horror story.
And:
> [O]ur nanny was eventually cleared of all charges, but it took four years for the court to recognize my son’s medical condition (a rare occurrence in France, as I later discovered) during which we were forbidden to speak to her and she was forbidden to approach children, thus losing her means of livelihood.
>parents lose custody for 2 months. Horror story.
If you read the rest of the article, you will realize that this was the absolute happy path in that kind of situation. That's the real horror story: that the default path involves stuff like losing custody forever, incarceration, suicide, divorce etc.
Yes, after discovering hundreds of families living much worse situations, I consider myself as one of the lucky few. I'm grateful for that and this is why I can spend so much energy ensuring it doesn't affect too many other families in the future.
I'm happy for you -- the parents -- and your son. Thank you for your dedication. Wish you the best.
Watch the Netflix documentary Taking Care of Maya for a sobering and ongoing look into this.
Something similar happened recently in Massachusetts with a doctor seeing an injury the parents couldn't explain and the kid being taken away for a while. Injury turned out to probably have been done by the grandparents who never told the parents because the kid didn't fuss, but the kids were taken away in the middle of the night.
https://www.nbcboston.com/investigations/massachusetts-dcf-e...
My first inclination here is to blame the doctor. Per the Hippocratic Oath, doctors need to understand the implications of making reports like this and only do so in cases where there isn't reasonable doubt or plausible explanations other than abuse. Separating children from parents and making accusations like this is extremely traumatic in itself, so the evidence bar needs to be very high.
Even if the rules tell doctors that they need to make a report in a given scenario, they should not be following the rules when they know the bureaucracies that handle these reports are dysfunctional and prone to separating children without conclusive evidence. Imo they are responsible for protecting their patients from the system in these cases.
So you err on the 'some children are abused and die' side of things, and other people err on the 'some parents get separated from their children' side.
I don't think the line is at doctors reporting, and I'll tell you why.
There are many cases of MD's having patients where they know the whole family and can't believe that abuse would be going on, so they don't report things like spiral fractures and pattern bruising in a five year old. Those are markers of serious domestic violence and abuse, but since the doc knows the parent, and the parent has a sorta reasonable explanation, fine.
No. The doctor reports, then the parents get investigated. Sorry it sucks, but the point to fix is the people interacting with the family at the point of investigation, not the report by an MD, because unfortunately the MD is going to lean towards not reporting until it is too late.
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My first inclination is to blame DCF workers.
> These people are working in the shadows, in darkness," Lamanna said. "They can show up at your house in the middle of the night with no paperwork, no court order whatsoever, and say we’re removing under the B, we’ve decided an emergency exists."
> According to DCF’s 2022 quarterly report, about 60% of parents are reunited with their kids within a year after being removed by DCF.
Anyone who feels justified in stealing kids from parents in the middle of the night, without any due process, WITH A 60% MISS RATE, is completely and truly evil.
Seriously, more often than not DCF realizes they made a mistake and the kid goes back home. Insane.
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I'm not sure if it's federal, but in my state a doctor is required to report anything they feel is unusual. Mandated reporter, it's called.
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In my state, all doctors are required to report any evidence of child abuse, even if they don’t believe abuse has occurred.
That’s the law.
At the same time, reporting doesn’t guarantee or even suggest any outcome. Most reports end up as entries in a database and nothing more.
Not surprised it happened in France, they are much more of a nanny state (in good and bad ways) when it comes to parenting. Like the fact that paternity tests are banned unless you have a court order, etc.
reason.com has an entire long-running series of stories like this happening in the U.S. I've heard quite a few stories from the Netherlands. It probably happens in other countries as well.
It's an issue in many Western countries, where we've seemingly become risk-averse to the point where it's causing more harm than good.
Here in Norway the child protection services have been found guilty[1] of being too quick to remove children from their parents, and not letting the parents see them.
This seems to have led to the pendulum swinging too much in the opposite direction, where they now seemingly force foster kids to meet their biological parents against the kid's will[2]...
[1]: https://rett24.no/articles/norge-felt-i-ni-nye-barnevernsake...
[2]: https://www.nrk.no/norge/mener-fosterbarn-presses-til-skadel...
Can’t you just get a paternity test online? Otherwise that’s an insane situation, do they expect a dad to raise a kid that is not his?
> Can’t you just get a paternity test online?
You can, but it's a crime, much like buying banned drugs etc.
> do they expect a dad to raise a kid that is not his?
Yes.
> do they expect a dad to raise a kid that is not his?
You just need a court order to do a paternity test, they're not banned but regulated by law.
It's not insane. Genetic lineage is the least important factor in whether or not a given kid is "yours".
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What's the outcome for the kid? Can the system even do much to help with the child's medical condition? If not, it's irrational for people to take their children in for examination; there's no benefit and you risk being accused.
He underwent surgery to remove the excess of fluid around the brain, and his condition progressively improved. It could have worsened without the operation, we'll never know. Now, at almost 8, he's doing great.
I've seen cases where parents call the ER after a collapse of their child, only to see their child wake up just fine a few minutes later. The EMT tells them it's not necessary to bring their child to the hospital given the child has recovered, but the parents insist. At the hospital, sometimes they have to insist too for a CT scan to be performed. This is where doctors find subdural bleeding and the parents end up accused, the child is removed for months, etc. Yet, the child gets no particular medical treatment. None of this would have occurred if the parents hadn't insisted!
Parents only know symptoms, which could be anything. Those same symptoms (or small variations) can lead to a very different diagnosis which is easily treatable.
I can't help but think that incidents like this might make parents less likely to take their baby to the ER out of fear.