Posted on 02/25/2014 6:54:07 PM PST by LD Jackson
I suspect many who will read this post already know who Justina Pelletier is. For those of you who do not, she is a 15-year-old girl from Connecticut who is trapped in Massachusetts. She was just ordered to a non-medical foster care facility by Judge Joseph Johnson on Monday. I'll try to fill in the back story as briefly as possible, but the details we know are important.
Until just over a year ago, Justina Pelletier was living her life as a teenager in Connecticut. She loved to ice skate, if the pictures we have available are any clue. She was diagnosed with a rare medical condition called mitochondrial disease by Tufts Medical Center in Boston. In simple terms, this disease causes the human body to be unable to produce enough energy to fuel itself. In turn, this can cause all sorts of medical problems. She was dealing with her disease as best she could and was being supported by her family. There is every indication that she was enjoying her life and was active. That was before she came down with the flu.
Because her family knew the flu could be especially hard for mitochondrial patients, they contacted her primary mitochondrial doctor at Tufts Medical Center. That doctor suggested they take her to Boston Children's Hospital, where their gastrointestinal specialist had just moved to. Dutifully following the doctor's orders, they drove three hours to Boston. Once there, the situation blew up in their face. Boston Children's Hospital disagreed with the original diagnosis of mitochondrial disease. In very short order, the hospital diagnosed Justina with a somatoform disorder and accused the Pelletier family of medical child abuse. They were ordered to be in court the next day. That was in February 2013. They have been fighting for custody of Justina ever since.
This case should not be that complicated. Even if the two hospitals disagreed on Justina's diagnosis, could this have not been settled, without removing her from the custody of her parents? I'll be the first to admit, there may be more to this story than we are being told. That being said, it seems to me what we are seeing is a battle of medical and legal egos, with a 15-year-old girl trapped in the middle of the fight.
The disorder diagnosed by Boston Children's Hospital is a mental disorder that causes the patient to have imaginary pain. As a result of this diagnosis, medical treatment for mitochondrial disease was stopped and Justina was confined to a locked psychiatric ward, where she was told by workers she would never be going home. Take a look at the before and after picture below and tell me if you think the mental health treatment has been good for Justina.
I'll be honest, I have been watching this story, but had no intention of writing about Justina's plight. The simple reason is that there are too many unknowns and I like to be informed about the issues I write about. I changed my mind because of two text messages I received from our youngest daughter and the resulting conversation. She wanted to know if I had heard of Justina Pelletier and said I should write about what was happening to her. Randi is not easily outraged and is very established in reality. Some of her first words to me about Justina were "she has been kidnapped by the hospital and the public needs to know what is happening". Thus, my research expanded and here we are.
The picture above tells part of the tale. In December 2012, Justina Pelletier was an active teenage girl with her entire life in front of her. In February 2014, she looks as if she is on the door of death. Two things have changed in that span of time. First of all, she is allowed no private visits with her family, and even then, only an hour at a time. No private family interaction at all. Second, her medical treatment has been completely changed. Instead of being treated for mitochondrial disease, she is being treated for a mental health disorder. It is clear to see, her health has not improved as a result of the change in treatment. Because I am a simple man with at least a little common sense, it seems to me Justina should be continuing her original treatment. It was, after all, being effective. Does that not count for something in the medical and legal worlds?
I say again, there may be things about this story that we do not know. It is interesting that a gag order has been issued about the case. It is also worth noting that Lou Pelletier has defied that order by talking about his daughter and their case on The Blaze and with Megyn Kelly of Fox News. He seems to believe he has a story to tell that needs to get out to the press. Beset on all sides by people who seem to be determined to take his daughter away from her family forever, he is fighting with everything he has to preserve his family. Faced with the same situation, I would be doing the same thing.
Again looking at the simplicity of things, I would ask these questions. Since when does any state have the authority to remove a child from her home and place them in a locked psychiatric ward, all because two hospitals disagreed on her medical diagnosis? Are we at such a place in America that a child and her family's well-being is placed second to the egos of doctors, hospital administrators, and state social workers? As parents, are we not allowed to question the diagnosis of the doctors who are treating our children? Do we face accusations of child abuse, just because we ask for a second opinion?
As far as I am concerned, if the answer to any of these questions is a yes, then we are certainly living in a much different America than I grew up in. Justina Pelletier's health is the issue, not the egos of the doctors who can not agree on what her problem is. They can't even agree if it is a real medical condition or just in her head. To my way of thinking, it is shameful that a teenage girl could get so trapped between the hospitals and the state, she may very well die as a result. Where's the rightness in that?
Conservative Hideout is also covering this story and wonders if the state is out of control. I tend to wonder that myself.
I was just referring to the Doctor that treated her in the ER at Boston Children’s. I don’t know what his specialty is.
I think the situation has arrived at a point where Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) likely realizes it has made a MAJOR mistake but also realizes it has incurred HUGE, HUGE malpractice liability. BCH and the Boston Child Protective Service (or whatever the monstrous Boston bureaucracy perpetuating this evil is called) are now doing whatever they can to delay, delay, delay and put off the ultimate MASSIVE civil monetary penalties they will be incurring (institutionally and individually) for their malpractice and malfeasance. And, in doing this, they continue their destruction of this young girl and her family.
Heartless, monstrous creatures!!
BCH has unloaded the kid now. On the Kelly File tonight it was reported that she is being transferred to a DCF mental health facility where no medical care is available.
The longer that they don’t release her to her parents, the worse it’s going to get.
I think most states have that. Florida does.
Absolutely!
Not to mention Judge Joseph F. Johnston's unconstitutional gag order in the case against Lou Pelletier. Kudos to Megyn Kelly for facilitating Mr Pelletier's violation of the court order, which is made to be broken!
Yeah, quite the hot shot!
His name is Jurriaan M Peters. Hopefully, he will end up costing BCH a very comfortable living for Justina.
Massachusetts (led by Deval Patrick) sends children
to foster homes run by child rapists and felons
(about 400 so far).
The year was taken to find just the righttttttttttt one.
Not terribly different from that family that ran the day care center in Mass in the early 90’s. Coakley was the prosecutor i believe. Some fake specialist drew out all sorts of nonsense from the children. Eventually the mom was freed but the son served 15 or so years. He was denied his freedom. When they looked at it again and retried it was all about the state not being wrong. Same state. Same result of incarceration for no reason.
Too many people have a stake in the state being correct to just let an obvious injustice go.
When I was 17 I was in excruciating pain in my left back above my hip bone. It was like a stitch that you get when you have been running hard, but it never went away. Over the next year I went to my GP, then to a GI doc, then to a urologist. They all said there was nothing there, and the urologist told my mom I needed to seek mental help for my fake pain. Three months later I went to the hospital with a blocked kidney due to a large stone that had been caught in my ureter. When they did the IVP (this was the early eighties) they found three more stones lodged right behind it. For almost a year I was in pain and the doctors were trying to convince my parents it was in my mind. My parents kept insisting I was sick. If that would have been today they would have taken me from my parents and locked me away. God protect us from this government, we surely need it!
I'm thinking they behaved impulsively, hysterically, and now they're hiding as hard as they can. I smell a panicked conspiracy. It'll have to break soon. They don't want to lose their "phony baloney" jobs or their power.
Can the governor of Mass step in? That's what should be happening--Go to the Guv, Pellier--
Isn’t this health “system” all under Romney Care the model for Obamacare? Maybe they are following the playbook for this health care model and the commies need to see it to the end result.
If this poor girl has sepsis, she'll be dead within a few months... and DCF laughs it off. The same DCF that has had hundreds of children die in its "care". The same DCF that lost children (presumed murdered) in their system.
DCF and Children's Hospital will have blood on their hands when this child dies. I hope both are sued into oblivion. The doctors and DCF personal who created this situation should go to jail, but since they have the power of the State, there will be no justice, at least in this life.
This situation is mind boggling...if anyone treated an ANIMAL the way this girl is being treated, they would rightly be brought up on charges...
until gawdforbid you get roped into these courts,you DO NOT BELIEVE the horror stories of the outrght abuse of rights under color of law and it’s all in a no due process scenario,unconstitutional kangaroo court setting.
the ad litems,court appointees etc and the judge are working for themselves and until more wake up and understand the reality that THEY TOO can wind up with their kids removed or their disabled or elderly gone and isolated without authentic charges ,it will simply continue to be repeated Mondays through Fridays in our wonderful family and probate courts nationwide.
To any nonbelievers,simply search probate abuses and fight cps.
how would they make money ? how does anyone get the “reward” ?
your atty gets 33 and 1/3 and you get the rest, or you present it pro se or in propria persona. Hopefully there will be a landslide of filings as people resist the urge to be fearful of the courts ,BUT if you have witnessed 1st hand how they operate, you would literally want an order of protection from them all.
The govenors couldn’t care anyless the same as the superior courts couldn’t care anyless at the actions going on within their lower courts which are stated as being “under the umbrella” of the higher court and therefore operating under the USC-
Someone did include the govenor of CT in her lawsuit-gross v rell 2nd Circuit Court-another horror story courtesy of the probate sytem which operates the same as the family courts and is simply another no due process scenario that get away with it.
as bad as this case is,maybe more will understand and react,how this bs system of probate / guardians on demand operates and this family system where they wind up the same with the ad litems etc.
for emancipation the minor must prove income etc and being capable.
if i knew how to do it,and had more respectability on Free Republic,I’d make a link to my “vanity” title “basic rules on dealing with probate court and family courts in this exact same situation”.
I will just state again and again and again that these courts appointees MUST be sued. Not should be sued,or do these people have a case or they don’t have a case,judicial immunity etc.
THIS family definitely has a case and should get moving from filing police reports or making the law enforcement accept their statement,pull the charts from the previous doctors, the documentation of the acceptance by the receiving hospital and under what service etc-they need to START their discovery, and keep banging the DA etc because now they can DOCUMENT the fact that a crime was committed and then “serve” the court appointees,hospital adm,the admitting physician,the chiefs of these services etc even on the level of a notarized statement of truth/affirmation “under threat of perjury,I affirm” sent certified/return receipt etc-
there is plenty for them to do and get done and at least ESTABLISH facts and the actions of this hospital and the court apppointees versus established law and procedure.
It’s just starting where individuals are filing along the lines of 42 USC 1983,or violations of the 1st and 14th ,getting their day in court and some do not even have to appear in court if their complaint fully proves the violations,and they are winning.
Someone should have contacted them by now with this information readily available online,for free with cases to cite etc. A simple search “fight cps” gets you there.
these outrageous actions go on every working day in these alleged courts and even the “protective agencies and civil rights groups don’t care. They’re frauds.
Perhaps people are not reading the facts of the case close enough, else they wouldn’t be asking the same questions over and over again. The reason the girl has been kept from her parents, and the reason she isn’t receiving medical treatment is because the doctors at Children’s presented a compelling case and evidence that purports to prove that very medical treatment she was receiving for a mitochondrial disorder is exactly what was making her case worse, because she doesn’t have a mitochondrial disorder. It would be like giving chemotherapy to a healthy person. The second the family gets their daughter back there’s a very strong chance they will want to resume the mitochondrial treatment that Children’s say caused her so much harm. This is not a conspiracy. Time will tell if Children’s is on the right track. Don’t get me wrong though, the power of the state is bulls$&t, and frightening but I don’t think intentionally causing this girl harm is their goal.
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