State takes a newborn
If this account is accurate, then I think tar and feathers are in order.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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March 29th, 2012 at 9:58 am
Tar and feathers would be too kind.
March 29th, 2012 at 10:02 am
It’s the flip side of the abortion/pro-life argument. I am from the government and I love your baby more than you do.
Tar and feathers? Horsewhipping.
March 29th, 2012 at 10:34 am
Well, there appears to be a suit.
This is the first web-search item I found that wasn’t a copy of the statement from HSLDA.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/03/williamstown_couple_sues_penn.html
Not that I don’t trust HSLDA: I can remember when they were very active in the arena of law relating to home-education.
This is a scary event, and may have been the result of hospital staff and social-worker miscommunication. Or the social worker decided to mess with someone.
The first option may rule out tar and feathers. The second option seems to require them.
March 29th, 2012 at 10:49 am
My wife and I were members of HSLDA for years. Particularly in the earlier years of home schooling, we never knew when the knock on the door might sound.
I will add, the more you mix health care and government, the more health care institutions will see themselves as “quasi-governmental” with the presumed authority that so often makes such places.
March 29th, 2012 at 10:51 am
If – and I stress “IF” and only “IF” with full, complete and verifiable documentation – this account is true, tar and feathers are completely inadequate.
I will rely upon regular readers of Uncle’s blog to suggest what action, beyond tar and feathers, should be applied to rectify this situation and prevent future similar occurrences.
March 29th, 2012 at 11:44 am
Who’s willing to bet the “social worker” and others involved in this incident will receive nothing more than the proverbial twenty lashes with a wet noodle?
March 29th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
A lawsuit whose damages will effectively deter anyone from thinking about a repeat.
March 29th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Tar and Feathers. Drawing and Quartering. Riding them out on a Rail. All of ’em.
March 29th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Story doesn’t seem plausible. Hospitals generally respect people’s privacy rights, and don’t let social workers wander the halls or badger people.
If a parent is refusing consent to medical care for a child, the decision to override is made by a medical professional – doctor, nurse practioner, physican’s assistant (maybe, under unusual circumstances) or pharmacist (in a very limited set of circumstances).
Nurses and doctors don’t hop-to when a social worker (or cop for that matter) give orders.
Nurses and doctors don’t check with a social worker to figure out whether the parent has given consent; they check with the parent. If the mom is too sick to give consent, they check with the dad. If the mom is sick and the dad isn’t there, the doctor documents and then makes the decisions.
Likely – the parents declined to give consent to treatment until questions were answered, and the doctor went on to the next patient, leaving the nurse to explain. Likely there were two doctors – an OB/GYN for the mom, and a pediatrian for the baby, and neither one wanted to spend extra time explaining stuff. The nurse couldn’t explain adequately, and says “wait for the doctor to come back.” Maybe a bad nurse or bad doctor would punt to a social worker to explain the importance of giving consent to treat. It is completely likely that once a social worker was invovled, that they would lie and badger.
Parents decline treatment all the time. No blood draw to test for jaundice, no problem. Delay the vaccines for 3 days? No problem, but be sure to come back in or we’ll report you.
Now, if you refuse to have the baby foot-printed (like a finger print, useful for quickly ID’ing mixed up babies), the picture taken, patient bar-code bracelets, and the baby anti-theft bracelet – the staff will be annoyed, and some states might have laws to prevent baby-stealing.
There is also no way a hospital would let a new mom leave early without a fight. They would never kick her out for not signing a safety plan. Not see her baby – maybe. But women who just gave birth are gold mines, even without any insurance. There is no expense a doctor can request payment for that the state won’t cover for the first 72 hours, even without paperwork that the woman is poor or qualifies for aid. The aid is automatic. There are no gaps. Likely that she absolutely refused to be treated, and demanded to be released from the hospital, and they finally told her she could leave, but please come back every 3 hours to feed your baby.
As a separate plausbility factor, virtually everyone in the OB/GYN ward is fanatically committed to the ideals of motherhood. Every nurse, every doctor fought to get there. They are true believers in baby-needs-to-nurse, mommy needs to recover, both mommy and baby need to bond.
Speculatively, if the baby had narcotics or alcohol in the system, the hospital might have been aggressive in protecting the baby, and the parents aggressive in fighting back. Speculatively, if the baby needed immediate medical care, the doctors might have dropped the ball in explaining, which would make the parents justifiable enraged (and speculatively, willing to exagerrate their story).
March 29th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Wow Dustydog… you seem to have it all figured out. Nice to put your spin on it with absolutely no investigation at all. I highly doubt HSLDA would put their resources out there if this was like you seem to think. I know first hand how arrogant some doctors and nurses can get when they find out you don’t want your child getting injections. I don’t have all of the facts either, but I sure wouldn’t discount the victim until there was more information available.
March 29th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
@Ian
“A lawsuit whose damages will effectively deter anyone from thinking about a repeat.”
There’s really no such thing, unless the specific individuals pay for it themselves. The hospital can be influenced with lawsuits. But government employees don’t really care. A neighboring city gets sued all the time, but they haven’t changed a thing because the mayor and city council are just paying tax revenues back out.
March 29th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
SOMEbody has an agenda, and the welfare of mother and child and family are nowhere on it.
April 2nd, 2012 at 11:38 am
I was under the impression that the individuals were on the hook for damages under a 1983 suit. The article certainly implies that the root cause was the hospital’s great fear of an obstetrics malpractice sit.