Anyway, I have to give the ACLU some credit for doing the right thing.
Posted on 10/29/2010 11:19:46 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
PITTSBURGH -- The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the parents whose newborn daughter was taken away after the mother failed a hospital drug test because she had eaten a bagel.
Elizabeth Mort gave birth to her daughter, Isabella, at Jameson Hospital in Lawrence County in April.
Three days after the birth, caseworkers with the county's Children and Youth Services department took the infant. Mort said it wasn't until the police arrived that she learned she had tested positive for drugs while in the hospital.
"I was devastated. I just cried, and cried, and cried. I didn't want to let her go. I didn't. I was heartbroken. I watched them leave the driveway. I ran upstairs," Mort said at a news conference Thursday.
According to the ACLU, Isabella was returned after it was determined the bagel Mort had eaten prior to admission to the hospital contained poppy seeds, which resulted in the false positive.
(Excerpt) Read more at thepittsburghchannel.com ...
If I were on the jury, this couple would virtually own the hospital when this was all over.
So why is the hospital sharing medical information with law enforcement absent a warrent or a legal requirement to do so? It seems to me that this is a clear violation of privacy.
Hope they become millionaires. Everything about this story is outrageous.
Anyway, I have to give the ACLU some credit for doing the right thing.
Do hospitals even have any right to be doing drug tests on new mothers while they’re in the hospital, and if so, to then pass the results of those tests on to a third party? I’m guessing there may be some law that mandates this. Good intentions aside, it sounds like a huge breach of privacy and patient confidentiality to me.
Plus, there are no laws or regulations that requires the hospital to report such info. Talk about invasion of privacy.
Who the heck simply hands over their newborn to a caseworker on a bogus accusation, or a policeman, or anyone for that matter without some form of hearing or court order??
FMCDH!!
WOOOOHOOOO!!!!!
That was my first thought. Why is a hospital drug testing an expecting mother? My wife was never tested.
That in itself is an outrage and I’d sure just over that. I’d sue these ba$tards so hard their ancestors would feel it.
Perhaps more insidious is the routine checking of placentae after deliveries. Drugs can be detected, and, unlike a mother or child, a placenta has no civil rights.
I’m trying to figure out why she was tested for drugs in the first place. The article itself says “Jameson’s policy of screening for drugs and reporting positive results to CYS is not required by federal or state law”.
Not to mention a very low threshold allowing for more false positives.
This leads to the thought that this hospital arbitrarily drug tests all new mothers, even with no probable cause.
Good point!
P.S. How do you know?
Elaine-”I found out why I’ve been testing positive for Opium. Poppy seeds!”
It may have to do with how the birth was paid for (taxpayer funded?)
Not that you ever knew about!
lol...it took 15 posts before the obligatory "Seinfeld" reference. :)
They drug test because if they don’t and the baby comes up with a medical problem that they didn’t treat for because they didn’t know about the drug use then they can be successfully sued and held responsible on a number of levels. In this case, however, the hospital screwed up in a big way by not further investigating and verifying a drug problem.
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