Medical power over the innocent
The following story is too long to tell in one sitting. It will take at least 2 and possibly 3 posts to get through it all and for those of you who are as appalled by this tale as I am, I would like to urge you to forward this on to everyone you feel would be interested. We are currently working with several government departments including the Ombudsman's office, the Health Complaints Commission, Family Services and more to not only support the family involved in this case but to try and ensure that these sorts of events become a thing of the past. Please tune in tomorrow for Part 2 and if you yourself are planning a home birth, be sure to line up a strong support person should you require a transfer to hospital. In Australia, it seems, it is legal to have a baby but not necessarily to have the birth that you choose. Please note - all names have been changed as has the location to protect this family.
The birth of a healthy baby is supposed to be the most wonderful time in a family’s life. And so it was with Sara Marie Smith. Her 9-year old daughter, Crystal was with her when her new baby, another girl, was born after a 1½ hour labour.
Being more than 2 hours out of town and living in the bush, Sara was not able to make it to hospital for the birth, but everything went perfectly and after cutting the cord and checking bubs over, the 3 of them fell asleep gazing at the stars and revelling in their closeness as a family and the miracle of this new life that had joined them so quickly and easily.
By the next morning however, Sara was still unable to deliver the placenta and realised that there might be a problem.
She called an ambulance to take her to Hospital where, with the help of staff, she delivered the placenta and needed blood transfusions due to her loss of blood.
The nursing staff were wonderful, but the paediatrician and the other doctors were quite stern with Sara. They could not understand why she birthed outside of the hospital system and when she explained that her baby was born too quickly to come in to birth, they stated that they felt what she had done was not responsible.
They checked the baby and told Sara that her daughter was running a slight fever (38°C) so the drew blood and told Sara that they wanted to put her daughter onto a 5-day course of intravenous antibiotics.
Sara did not approve of this. She does not use any pharmaceutical products unless she feels they are necessary and she asked if the doctors would agree to wait until the results of the blood test came back to see if her daughter, who was feeding well, was very settled and had lots of wet nappies, had any infection and if she did, what bacteria was causing it so the antibiotic could be targeted to treat the correct illness.
The doctors instantly became angry. Here was a mother who delivered outside of the hospital system and now, she was questioning their treatments.
Instead of listening to the mother and treating her suggestion with respect or alternatively, explaining why her idea was not a good one, they simply told Sara that they were going to section her under the Mental Health Act and they were taking custody of her baby. She could agree or not agree with the treatment – this baby was going to get antibiotics whatever she said.
Sara was weak from loss of blood and was unable to do very much at this time. In addition, she was completely alone without any support or friends in the area.
As soon as they doctors told her that she and her baby was being sectioned (it has since emerged that it is not possible to section a baby and Sara was never sectioned at this point – the staff lied to her), they removed this fully breastfed baby from her side and put her in the special care nursery.
Sara desperately wanted to ensure that no formula would be given to her daughter and that no dummies would be used since this would interfere with successful breastfeeding.
Yet every time she went to the nursery to feed (the doctors said that staff would come to her when the baby was hungry, but hours passed and nobody did, so even though she was still weak, she made her way to the nursery) the baby would be asleep so she knew that they were feeding her formula against her wishes.
About 24 hours after admission, the doctors told Sara that they were going to perform a lumbar puncture on her baby. The baby was still settled, had no temperature, rash or other signs of neurological problems. Sara begged to know why this was being done but the doctors simply said that they felt it was necessary and Sara could either come with them to feed the baby after the procedure to calm her down or she could stay in her room. Either way, the lumbar puncture would be done.
According to the Royal Children's Hospital of Melbourne:
Informed verbal consent should be obtained. This should include a discussion of the benefits of the procedure in terms of possible diagnoses and potential complications. Complications of LP may include:
Failure to obtain a specimen / need to repeat LP/ Traumatic tap (common)
Post-dural puncture headache (fairly common) - up to 5-15%
Transient/persistent paresthesiae/numbness (very uncommon)
Respiratory arrest from positioning (rare)
Spinal haematoma or abscess (very rare)
Tonsillar herniation (extremely rare in the absence of contraindications above)
The LP Parent Information Sheet may be useful in talking to parents about the procedure.
This is neither a safe nor a benign procedure and should only be performed if the benefit outweighs the potential risk. Sara did not feel that in this case, those conditions were met and the fact that the procedure was done without her consent and against her wishes was a sign to her that neither her safety nor her daughter's was of paramount importance to the hospital medical staff.
Of course, Sara agreed to be with her baby though she was devastated at the torture her child would have to endure for nothing.
Both the lumbar puncture and the blood tests came back clear of any infection so the procedure and the antibiotics were completely unnecessary, as Sara had suspected.
After 2 days of only occasionally breastfeeds, Sara went to the nursery with one of the sympathetic nursing staff. As soon as they entered the room, they saw the baby lying in her cot with a dummy in her mouth.
The nurse went ballistic and demanded to know why they had given the baby a dummy against the wishes of the mother. “She was crying”, said the nursery attendant, “what did you expect me to do?”
At that point, the nurse insisted that Sara be allowed to bring her baby back to her room and feed her there.
Reluctantly, the doctor agreed. They also agreed that the baby would get one more dose of antibiotics at midnight that night and then, she would not need any more
This was great news, but it came with a price.
The doctors informed Sara that when the antibiotics were finished, they were going to give the baby a Hep B vaccine. Sara is not Hep B positive and Hep B vaccination, like all other childhood vaccines, is not compulsory in Australia.
Sara refused the shot and said that she did not want her daughter to be vaccinated – she is a conscientious objector.
Again, the doctors said that since Sara had been sectioned, she had no choice. Aside from that, it was routine at this Hospital to give all babies a Hep B vaccine and this baby would get one too.
Sara felt that the hospital was spinning out of control when it came to their treatment of both her daughter and herself. She felt that both of them were victims of institutional abuse and that if she did not get some help, either she or her daughter might never recover from this ‘treatment’.
This is when Sara contacted me.
I have known Sara for over 9 years – since her first daughter, Crystal, was born.
Sara is an extremely intelligent and caring person. She is a devoted mother and amazingly good with bush-craft. Her lifestyle choices would not suit everyone, but Sara loves living out in the bush, far from cities and amongst small communities where she is well known and respected.
Though her baby’s birth may have been unusual, the fact that the doctors took this as a sign of insanity and that the hospital used this as an excuse to remove her rights as a mother make one wonder why so many children are left in abusive situations whilst Sara’s family is abused by the system that is supposed to protect them.
Sara wanted to get out of the hospital. Her baby was well. She was well.
She was frightened by the way in which she was being treated. She told me that a Family Services officer had been called in and that this woman had been extremely abusive towards her.
In addition, the gynecologist they had assigned to her treated Sara as if she were not just crazy but stupid. Family Service, the gynecologist and the paediatrician all wanted to do a psychiatric evaluation of her and she had just fed the baby and put her in the cot so she could go to the toilet when they all barged into her room without knocking.
The gynecologist called out to Sara, “You need to come with us.”
Sara said she was on the toilet and asked if they could please wait a minute.
The woman yelled so the whole corridor heard her, “No, you need to come now! You’re sectioned! You’re sectioned!”
Sara told me that one of the nurses there was trembling because she was so upset by the way in which Sara was being treated.
She was trapped in a system that was treating her like a criminal and was doing things to her daughter that she felt were harmful.
Since I was not nearby, I contacted a couple of our members in this area that I have known for over 15 years. This couple has 5 home-birthed children and are very well-respected members of the community.
I asked if they would go to the hospital to visit with Sara and see if there was anything they could do to help her.
They went and called from the hospital to say that Sara and the girls were healthy and gorgeous and that the nursing staff were being wonderful to her.
All was not rosy, however. One of the nurses revealed that the next day, the doctors had planned a secret meeting where they were going to meet with Family Services with the aim of removing the baby from Sara’s custody. It seems that some doctors really don’t like people who ask questions or disagree with them.
Sara felt that she needed to get out of the hospital and fast!
She sent Crystal down to the car and took what she could carry – leaving the rest behind – and put her baby into a carry bag and took her out of the hospital. I challenge any caring parent to do differently if they felt that their own baby was at risk.
Once downstairs, she left and went to stay with friends. For the first time in 5 days, she was able to sleep well, eat good food, not be filled with fear and just relax. She woke refreshed the next morning.
Worried that she had left all of her money and clothes in her car when she was picked up by the ambulance, Sara left early the next morning to go back to where she had left the car to get her things
She took the AVN members who had visited her in hospital with her to help and they just planned on getting her stuff and going back home where Sara could rest up and regain her strength.
Unfortunately, the hospital had alerted the police to the fact that Sara had left the hospital – telling them that the baby had been in the special care nursery which was not true and that she needed urgent medical care which also was not true.
In addition, they had released Sara’s name to the media, the description of her older daughter and also their car and license plate number – all of which, from what I have been led to believe, are illegal to do when a minor child is involved.
When Sara got to the car, the police were there waiting for her. We are currently investigating the legality of this move since Sarah had not done anything against the law in leaving the hospital since she was NOT sectioned and her daughter was NOT under orders as a Ward of the State
Distressed, Sara called and asked me to speak with the police officer.
The Senior Constable was a lovely man in a difficult position. He had been instructed by Family Service to bring Sara and the baby back to the hospital to be examined by the paediatrician there.
I explained that Sara did not want to go to the hospital and that she had been very badly treated there. There was a nurse at the caravan park (which is where Sara was) and the nurse examined the baby and declared that she was perfectly healthy.
I asked the police officer if that would be good enough to appease Family Services.
He said he would need to contact his superiors for advice on that so we agreed to speak again in 15 minutes.
While he was making his call, I phoned Legal Aid and spoke with a solicitor to get advice for Sara. The solicitor then spoke with Sara herself and told her that she did not have to go with the police if they wanted to take her back to the hospital but if there was some other option that could be agreed upon, that she would be best off cooperating.
In 15 minutes, the officer spoke with me and said that he had been told that if Sara would go to a nearby clinic (approximately ½ way to the city) to be examined by the sister there, and if the sister said that she and the baby were healthy, then that would be enough to satisfy Family Services and she could then make an appointment at her leisure to see her own doctor as a follow-up. Family Services and the police would be satisfied with that.
Sara told me she felt this was a trap. I trusted the police officer and told her that she should do what the lawyer had suggested and just cooperate. Once the exam was done, she could go home and forget about all of this. After all, the important thing was to show that she had taken care of her daughter and the nurse would be able to confirm this.
Reluctantly, she agreed to go. We should have listened to her instincts.
When she got to the clinic, there were 2 Family services officers there – the woman from the hospital who had treated her so abominably – and another woman from another town about 300kms away from the city where the hospital was located.
Sara and the baby were examined by the nurse and were both declared – for the second time in a couple of hours – to be in perfect health.
This was not enough for Family Services though. They told Sara that they wanted to interview her 9-year old daughter Crystal – alone.
Sara would not approve of this and called me.
I asked if I could speak with the Family Sercies officer and the woman from the smaller town came to the phone.
I said that Sara would be fine for them to speak with Crystal, but that she wanted to have an advocate there with her which was her right.
The officer refused.
I then asked what the next step would be and I was told that they were taking the baby back to the Hospital.
I asked why that was the case when the nurse had said that the baby was healthy and the woman responded that they were taking custody of the child.
I asked what reason they had for taking custody of this baby and she said that it was because Sara had left hospital without permission.
I then asked if Sara had been a prisoner in the hospital and I was told that she was not but that she had not been discharged nor had the baby.
I asked if Sara had been sectioned whilst she was in hospital and the woman replied that she had not. I said, “Then the hospital lied to her because they said that she had been sectioned.”
The woman replied that she would not comment on that but she confirmed that Sara had not been sectioned.
I again asked why they were taking custody of the baby and the woman said that it was because they had fears for her health.
Why, I asked, when she was perfectly healthy?
At this point the woman said that she was going to terminate the conversation and she hung up on me.
About ½ an hour later, I received another call from Sara. The police officers were being ordered by the Family Services officers to take the baby and go to the Hospital.
We had a relayed conversation trying to negotiate for more time since Sara was breastfeeding the baby and they were rushing her and talking over her and not allowing her to ask questions.
Keep in mind that this baby was just 5 - 6 days old at this time and this mother had just recovered from a serious loss of blood. How many of us would have had the strength to withstand this sort of abusive treatment?
In the negotiations, I asked Sara to ask if she would be allowed to ride in the car with the Family Services workers who were taking custody of this baby while my friend drove Crystal in the other car to the hospital.
The officer said that Sara could come with them.
Sara then asked if the baby needed a feed if they would stop the car to allow her to feed her baby and the officer said no.
The workers at this point said that we had talked long enough and they instructed the police officer to take the phone away from Sara and to hang up which they did.
The rest of this story is from my friend who witnessed it.
Crystal, my friend and Sara went outside to the cars. Sara asked my friend to get her a bottle of water (for herself) and some baby clothes and cloth nappies from her car so that she would have some things to bring to hospital with her.
She then got into the back seat of the car with her baby and was starting to put her into the car seat.
One of the Family Services officers said to the police officer, “We have waited long enough. She is just delaying. Take the baby away from her [meaning Sara], get her out of the car and if she won’t get out, arrest her.”
My friend said that the officer obviously did not want to do this and looked extremely unhappy about these orders.
They took the baby from Sara who started to cry. Crystal then started to cry and then to scream when she saw her baby sister being removed and then, the baby started to cry.
Sara was forcibly removed from the car and the Family Services officers drove off.
Sara and Crystal ran to their own car leaving the money and the clothes with my friend – and raced after the Family Services officers. It is a wonder they did not have an accident.
Tomorrow: Sara and baby - back at the hospital