Kathy and Ahmed Giwa, with son Ali in the middle. Image courtesy Fox 26 Houston.
UPDATE 12/27/2015
Since the interview below, Health Impact News has received updated information. The Giwas are no longer free to speak to us or to any other media. They were reminded of this during a recent hearing where they were told that they must pay a $5000 fine for exercising their 1st Amendment right to free speech. A court order forbids them to do any fundraising to raise the money to pay the fine.
From the court order obtained by Health Impact News:
Health Impact News has learned that they stand to have their parental rights terminated if they do not pay the fine by January 9.
People are now asking if extortion and blackmail are now among the tools available to family court judges?
Since the judge in this case has forbidden the Giwas to speak with media, advocate Karen Riley recently sent us this alarming message:
I have been following the Giwa story in Houston from the start, and have actually had the pleasure of meeting this family in person while I was in Houston on 12/22/15 to attend a rally on their behalf as well as many other families who have had their children stolen from them by Child Protective Services and the Family Courts.
Mr. and Mrs. Giwa and Mrs. Giwa’s mother are wonderful people. Despite missing their children and having their children ripped from them unfairly and unjustly, right before Christmas, they are very intelligent, very warm and gentle people doing their best to hold themselves together. The Giwa’s are from Nigeria and have dual citizenship there and in the U.S. What has and is happening to this family is no different than what is happening to thousands of other families in the U.S. all across the nation.
Ms. Riley describes how the Giwa children were unjustly taken from their parents, as described in the article below. She alleges that the children are being abused in foster care, and tells about the alarming orders from the judge:
The family was not permitted to see their children for 6 weeks and all three children have been placed in different foster homes, separated from each other as well. It has been reported and documented that when the Giwa’s were allowed to finally see their children a week ago, that the children had cuts, bruises, and marks on them that were recent, but no explanation as to what these injuries are from.
I have also learned that the Giwa’s will not be able to have Christmas with their children, won’t get to see them until some time in January, because the caseworker is going on holiday until then.
The Giwa’s had a hearing a few weeks ago before Judge Phillips where it was stipulated that the case worker/dept. must prove their case against the Giwas or return their children. The caseworker Teri Jones was not present, they could not prove their case against the Giwas, but their children were not returned to them. Instead Judge Phillips slapped the Giwa’s with a $5,000.00 fine for talking to a reporter who has also been following their story and has set in on their hearings. If they don’t pay the fine, he has threatened to terminate their parental rights.
This is an open violation of not only our Constitutional Rights, but our very laws. It is extortion plain and simple.
What is being done to the Giwa family is wrong, and illegal, as it is all across the country. The Giwa children need to be immediately returned home to their family, and Judge Phillips removed from the bench, charged with the crimes he is committing against this family and all those he has wronged in subsequent cases, jailed, and disbarred. Teri Jones and anyone else involved in the illegal kidnapping of the Giwa children should also be arrested and charged with their crimes against families.
Kathy and Ahmed Giwa Discuss the Kidnapping of Their Children in Houston on The National Safe Child Show
Tammi Stefano, host of The National Safe Child Show, on the air with Ahmed and Kathy Giwa said: “We’re going to hear about how Houston has sunk their teeth, I’m just going to say it, sunk their teeth into this families’ bones and held them hostage and they won’t let them go.”
by Orissa Mora-Kent Health Impact News/MedicalKidnap.com Staff
Tammi Stefano, host of The National Safe Child Show, is joined by Kathy and Ahmed Giwa, a couple who have received national media attention recently. Kathy Giwa has a Ph.D. and is working on her second Ph.D. She is a Texas certified special education teacher, Texas certified principal and also a CPS approved daycare director. Her husband, Ahmed, holds a Masters in Computer Science and also an MBA. Ahmed works for energy companies in Houston, Texas, where they live.
The Giwas are dual citizens of the U.S. and Nigeria. Their children were seized by Texas Rangers at the Dallas airport in November, after Customs and Border Control officers and local police reportedly refused to arrest them due to lack of evidence. Child Protection Services (CPS) was the one recommending the arrest. Ali Giwa, the youngest child, was medically kidnapped on April 14, 2015, by Harris County CPS – a county the family doesn’t even live in – on allegations of “failure to thrive.” Though Ali has some developmental delays, CPS never mentioned to the judge that he is in the 75th percentile with his height and weight. He was returned home on July 29, but the case remained open.
The U.S. Marshal at the Dallas airport allegedly had a private meeting behind closed doors with CPS, and acting on orders from CPS arrested the parents. They were at their gate, ready to board their plane with their car parked in the airport parking garage as they were clearly expecting to come back shortly to their home and jobs in Houston. They were hoping to get to say goodbye to their grandmother on her deathbed in Nigeria (Ahmed’s mother) to fulfill her dying wish.
Without a trial or any charges pressed against the parents, the Giwa family was torn apart when their three young children we removed from their custody at the airport just before Thanksgiving and Christmas. They have not seen their young children for over a month.
They recently told their story to Tammi Stefano on The National Safe Child Show.
Every Parent’s Nightmare
Kathy Giwa
Ahmed Giwa
Tammi asks,
…let me ask the two of you—let’s just get this off the table right now—have you ever been so frustrated that you just wanted to beat your child?
Ahmed and Kathy exclaim,
Never!
Tammi asks,
Did you ever give your child a shot of whiskey because you just couldn’t handle them anymore and you were hoping to put them to sleep?
Ahmed states,
Never. We don’t drink.
Tammi asks,
Any criminal background? Did you ever rob a bank? Did you ever hold somebody up? Anything?
Ahmed states,
Never.
Tammi asks,
Could you say that you feel like you’re in a nightmare?
Kathy says,
Definitely.
Tammi then asks,
Where are you citizens of? Are you U.S. citizens?
Kathy states,
We are U.S. citizens and also Nigerian citizens. We have dual nationality.
Mother Refuses Risky Medical Procedure for Son and is Taken to Court
Tammi then goes on to explain that prior to CPS’ involvement in their lives, Kathy had been traveling abroad with her children. While in England, she was taken to court by the CPS in England–after a pediatrician brought medical neglect charges against Kathy–for refusing to subject her 15 month old son to a very risky, and unnecessary MRI with Anesthesia.
Tammi asks Kathy,
Tell me about that.
Kathy replies,
Well, we had seen this pediatrician who was concerned because I questioned about the side effects of the MRI and I was told that the main problem would be putting the baby to sleep and they couldn’t guarantee he was going to wake up and I questioned would the results have any impact on the correct therapy and he said, ‘no.’
Tammi asks,
Was it [MRI] a necessity? Were you folks in a car accident? Did your child fall down the stairs? Did something happen?
Kathy replies,
Nothing of that sort.
Tammi asks,
Could an MRI have been avoided?
Kathy states,
Definitely.
Tammi asks Kathy about the last meeting she had with the doctor–one where CPS was “lurking, hiding somewhere in the vicinity of hearing”–who didn’t like her authority being questioned.
Tammi inquires of Kathy,
Tell us about that.
Kathy explains,
I didn’t know that their CPS was waiting by the door–because she [the doctor] expected me to argue–because I told them that I questioned the initial doctor.
They did all the blood-work. They couldn’t find anything wrong with the child. She told us to go home because I didn’t argue.
The next day when I called to tell her we didn’t want her services anymore she told their CPS to come and get the kids.
Medical Neglect Charges Withdrawn in UK but England CPS Contacts Texas CPS to Open Case
CPS in England took Kathy to court but then requested to withdraw the case when it became apparent that they were losing and the judge was about to rule against them.
Kathy says,
She [the judge] said, ‘I’m not going to hold this family. I’m not going to hold them back from returning home.’
Not long after they returned home to Houston, Texas from their travel abroad, a knock came on their door. Kathy says the knock came on April 8, 2015–one week after their return–when a CPS caseworker, who had been contacted by the CPS in England showed up at their door. CPS in Houston was led to believe, by the CPS in England, that there was still an open case against the Giwa family.
Kathy says,
They conveniently left out the part that they [England’s CPS] withdrew the case. All the false allegations that they presented to the court was what they gave this CPS office so this CPS office actually thought they had something.
Kathy and Tammi go on to discuss the events following that knock on the door. CPS in Houston insisted that the Giwa’s bring their three children to the E.R. so that their son could get the MRI (the MRI that Kathy Giwa had previously refused based on valid concerns for her son’s safety).
At the time of that hospital trip to the E.R. in Houston, the Giwa’s were under investigation, unbeknownst to them.
Tammi states,
Folks, we have other countries now intermingling with CPS, becoming a world wide connected powerhouse and that is scary. That’s really scary for every parent.
Over a period of seven days the Giwa’s were held in the hospital by CPS and not allowed to leave. The MRI they had refused in England, and other medical tests, were done on their 15 month old child without their consent.
Tammi says,
Folks, slavery is very much alive. Wake up America! This is not the land of the free anymore, and we’re hearing it.
The Giwa’s were told they had to fire their attorney in order to see their child. (The private attorney they had hired when CPS entered their lives.)
Tammi asks,
Can you tell us the name of the attorney?
Kathy replies,
Julie Ketterman.
Julie Ketterman, a Family Law Lawyer who has represented thousands of families in Houston, Texas.
Tammi says,
Julie is somebody that we’ve heard about quite often. She actually has a show very much like I do where she is vocalizing what she sees and what parents are experiencing and what’s happening within the system and how families are being affected more or less.
Tammi asks,
Was she a good attorney?
Kathy replies,
Very much so.
Tammi asks,
Who told you ‘fire Julie’?
Kathy answers,
The CPS supervisor.
Breastfeeding Baby not Allowed to be with His Mother Unless She Fires their Private Attorney
This CPS supervisor also prevented Kathy from continuing to breastfeed her son until she fired Julie Ketterman.
Tammi asks,
How long had it been from the time that you had that conversation with him that you saw the child.
Kathy replies,
A week.
Tammi asks,
You hadn’t breastfed your son who was used to breastmilk for a whole week? He was denied his mother’s breastmilk?
Kathy replies,
Correct. CPS actually told me not to breastfeed him because they ‘have a different plan for him.’
Kathy goes on to explain to Tammi that not only was she being denied the right to breastfeed her 15 month old son, they were also wanting to put the child on a feeding tube because he wasn’t eating the hospital food. Kathy explains to Tammi that her son eats an African diet – he is not accustomed to the American diet served in the hospital. Her child lost weight during his hospital stay–not being breastfed and not being allowed access to his traditional diet–being forced onto hospital food was apparently not in his ‘best interest.’
Kathy fired her attorney, Julie Ketterman, so that she could she her child again. CPS then offered the Giwa’s a court appointed attorney, but the Giwa’s turned that one down to hire another private attorney. During this time they would not release her son from the hospital back into his parent’s care. They [CPS] were accusing the Giwa’s of medical neglect because Kathy refused the MRI back in England.
Tammi asks,
Do you have your children today, Kathy and Ahmed?
Kathy and Ahmed reply,
No.
Parents a Danger to their Child? CPS Visits Home Unannounced 26 Times in 2 Months
Kathy explains that although they do not currently have any of their children, at one point only one twin was taken into CPS’ custody while the other two children were left in their parent’s custody. Then he was brought home and allowed to stay with his parents for two months before CPS swooped back in to take him back and with him, his two siblings as well.
From July 29 to September the Giwa’s were visited 26 times by CPS, CASA, the caseworkers, the court appointed attorney for the case–constantly showing up–without any warning. They traumatized the family, sometimes showing up at midnight unannounced, according to Kathy Giwa.
If the Giwas were truly believed to be a danger to their child, why did CPS bring the child back temporarily for a two month stay with mom and dad? Why weren’t all three children removed together, at the beginning? If the parents were not a danger, as the yo-yo actions suggest, CPS made a grave error taking the children in the first place. Such actions suggest that the children’s removal was never motivated out of concern for the children’s safety. Perhaps, the children were serving some ulterior motive of CPS at whim. Ripped from their parents loving arms by strangers, put back and then taken away again–when they were happy to stay there in the first place–who are the real abusers?
Tammi asks,
How were your children reacting to all of this chaos?
Kathy replies,
It was really traumatic. We could see the confusion when they had those strangers come into the house.
Tammi asks,
During the two months, did they ever make any allegations that there was a safety risk that you or your husband posed against the children that caused them to again remove your son from his loving parents?
Kathy states,
We actually have a document from them in writing that states that he was doing perfectly. The CPS doctor said it was very well. CPS agreed he was doing fantastic at home actually.
Tammi inquires,
He gained weight again – because he had lost some weight [while away from his parents]?
Kathy answers,
He gained weight and he made a lot of progress with his developmental milestones.
Tammi asks,
How old is your son right now?
Kathy answers,
He’s two.
Tammi asks,
Does he call you Mom?
Kathy explains,
Well, we haven’t seen him in a whole month. We don’t know how he is right now, but before he left home he called me ‘Mommy.’
Tammi asks,
Did he laugh a lot?
Kathy says,
Yes.
Tammi asks,
When he was taken from you, did you see a behavioral change, a sadness, a different look in his eye when he first came home?
Tammi asks specifically for Ahmed’s interpretation as well, to get the father’s perspective on the changes they noticed in their son over the course of time since he was taken from them and brought back (briefly).
Ahmed expresses,
His countenance changed, when they brought him back initially in July. …seeing his other siblings… He started changing, he became a happy kid. Even in October when one of the lawyers came, he saw him [our son] at home – he was very happy. He [the lawyer] said he was really improved.
Tammi says,
Then they come back in and take him again and put this child through the trauma of having this severe–potential–attachment disorder because they’re taking a young child away from the bond of the parents.
Ahmed says,
Correct. Correct. Definitely visibly very, very traumatic for him.
Meanwhile Grandmother in Nigeria Taken Ill to Deathbed Has “Dying Wish” to see Grandchildren
Tammi then discusses the event of Ahmed’s mother taking ill during all of this trauma happening.
Tammi asks,
Somebody in your family got very ill, unfortunately. Is that right?
Ahmed replies,
That’s right. That was my mom.
Tammi asks,
When did that happen?
Ahmed says,
Right now, she’s on her sickbed. Her last wish is to see her grandchildren.
Tammi asks,
Does it seem like your mom is going to survive?
Ahmed states,
No. She’s on her sickbed. She’s on her deathbed.
The Giwa family (all three of their children included) were granted special visas to go back to Nigeria to say farewell to their dying grandmother based on the documented evidence of Ahmed’s mother’s grim health conditions.
Tammi asks,
On November 6th your plane was scheduled to take off and take you folks to your Mom?
Ahmed replies,
To Nigeria, correct. That was on November 7th.
Exigent Visas Granted yet Parents Arrested at Gate for “International Kidnapping” of Their Own Children
The Giwa’s were scheduled to depart from Dallas, Texas on November 7th. After all of their luggage was checked, after they had passed through airport security, they were detained by Customs at their gate. Two CPS social workers were also present at the gate. (These CPS social workers were from Dallas, not Houston where the case originated.)
Kathy says,
CPS had flagged the children’s name with the airport authority. The local CPS in Dallas came down based on the instruction of the CPS here in Houston.
Tammi asks,
What was the instruction?
Kathy replies,
To arrest us for international kidnapping.
Tammi exclaims,
Kidnapping your children?
Kathy replies,
Exactly why the airport authorities refused to comply with their demand.
The Customs workers refused to fulfill CPS’ demand for the Giwa’s arrest since they had a legal visa to leave the country with their children to see their dying grandmother. However, CPS didn’t give up.
Tammi asks,
So you got on the plane, right?
Kathy replies,
Well, CPS didn’t let us.
Tammi asks,
CPS stayed in the airport?
Kathy answers,
Yes. And this was a federal jurisdiction where we were but CPS wouldn’t let us go. They called the airport police and told them to do the same and they didn’t agree so they got the Texas Ranger to arrest us.
Tammi inquires,
Did you see them [the airport police]? Did they speak with you?
Kathy says,
Well, they spoke with the federal authorities who told them they weren’t going to press charges – they were going to let us go. So they [airport police] said, ‘well we’re not going to get involved either because they don’t see any reason why we should.’
Tammi states,
But the CPS social workers, they won’t accept not getting their way.
When everything else had failed, CPS called the Marshals to come to the airport. (Federal authorities and local police had already declined to press charges against Kathy and Ahmed.) Were the Marshals even acting within their jurisdiction?
The Marshal Went into a Private Room with the CPS Workers?
Kathy explains,
They invited the Marshal inside a private room. When he came out he said he was just going to arrest us so CPS could take all the kids.
Tammi asks incredulously,
The Marshals went in a private room with the CPS workers?
Kathy affirms,
Correct.
Tammi asks,
For how long?
Kathy replies,
For about twenty minutes.
Tammi asks,
Where were you and the children during this time? And Ahmed?
Kathy answers,
We were in a room.
Tammi asks,
So you didn’t have your children in your arms?
Kathy replies,
No.
Tammi then inquires,
Did the Marshals ever ask you for any paperwork?
Kathy replies,
Nope.
Tammi asks,
They just said…?
Kathy relates,
‘We’re holding you for CPS. I’m arresting you and holding you for CPS.’
$10,000 Bond Set for Each Parent
Tammi says,
Last I knew folks, law enforcement didn’t work for CPS. Maybe the rules are changing. Maybe in Dallas… maybe Dallas is the forerunner in law enforcement–Marshals nonetheless–working for social workers. Many of whom only have a high school education.
Tammi then asks,
Did they take your children?
Kathy replies,
Yes, they did.
Tammi asks,
Did your children cry?
Ahmed says,
Yeah, they were crying.
Tammi inquires,
Were you put in jail?
Ahmed and Kathy say,
Yes.
Tammi asks,
For how long?
Ahmed answers,
We bonded out the next day.
Tammi asks,
How much of a bond?
Ahmed replies,
$10,000 on each one of us.
Tammi asks,
What were the charges? Kidnapping?
Kathy answers,
Interfering with child custody.
Tammi asks,
Who had custody of your children?
Kathy says,
CPS took them.
Tammi asks,
But before that? How can you interfere with custody. They were in your care and custody, weren’t they?
Kathy explains that even though the boy was at home at the time, CPS still had legal custody of him. CPS never had custody of the other two children whom they also took at the airport that day.
CPS Lied to U.S. Marshal?
Kathy explains,
What they presented to the Marshal was that they had custody of all three children.
Tammi asks,
When you came out of jail where were your children?
Ahmed answers,
I sent a text to the CPS caseworker: ‘Where are my children? I need to come take my children.’ She said at that point that they don’t have any plans of returning the children to us.
Tammi then inquired if any social worker, caseworker or supervisor who was assigned to the Giwa’s case had ever been taken off the case. Kathy relates that a supervisor was removed from their case. She’s no longer with the agency.
Tammi warns,
Folks–it’s really important if you have a CPS case–you must, must, must watch the social workers. If a social worker gets pulled off of your case, be concerned.
Tammi then asks,
Who is the judge in this case?
Kathy answers,
It’s Judge John Philips.
Tammi asks,
Do you speak in court?
Kathy replies,
Yes.
Tammi asks,
Does he listen?
Kathy says soberly,
We hope so.
Tammi says,
I hope so too.
Tammi asks if they’ve been given any reason why they can’t see their children.
Ahmed explains,
We have communicated via email several times. There has been no response.
Kathy explains that when they called and emailed trying to reach the case worker, they were told that ‘she is on vacation.’ They were told they would be contacted when she got back. She didn’t contact them when she got back.
“Save the Giwa Children!” Source: Facebook page.
Parents are Fighting to Get Their Children Returned to Them
It’s been over a month since the Giwa’s have seen their children. They have learned that their three children are not even being kept in the same foster home.
Tammi asks,
The twins are not together?
Kathy answers,
The twins have been separated. From the day they took them they never put them in the same foster home.
Tammi states,
National Safe Child wants to help this case. I don’t know what went wrong. I know that this is wrong and these children are suffering.
Tammi calls for action,
We would like to invite some advocates, some proactive, vocal, caring people; not to have a protest but to put out a hand, to give a shoulder and to show CPS that these folks have had enough.
Tammi asks Kathy and Ahmed if they are scared they will be thrown in jail again, if they are scared of the CPS workers, and if they are scared they will never see their children again.
Kathy and Ahmed reply,
Yes!
Tammi warns,
For everybody that’s listening right now. You are holding an invisible number if you are a parent. Do not think that these folks have done something that is not being disclosed during this program.
They have been scrutinized by several different media platforms.
There have been articles written about them and this situation.
They have had law enforcement look at the CPS workers and say, ‘we will not participate in this nonsense, this activity, because we stand for something.’
These folks have had their children removed for no reason.
Kathy and Ahmed have completed every demand of CPS and yet their children have not been returned to them. They did parenting classes, provided proof of secured income, a secure home for the children and also did multiple psychological evaluations. The first evaluation done by an independent psychologist was not accepted by CPS. Kathy says none of these things have made CPS stop.
We Need to Stop This!
Tammi asks,
Mr. and Mrs. Giwa, America is not what you thought it was, is it?
Kathy replies,
No.
Tammi asks,
Do you wish that you would have just stayed in Nigeria?
Stayed in England?
Stayed anywhere?
Kathy says,
Definitely.
Tammi expresses,
I’m ashamed on behalf of this country and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it has taken such an ugly, horrific and failed direction. It does not speak for all of us.
Tammi closes by saying,
We need to stop it folks… we must stop it. Not with fighting. Not with guns. Not with violence. With brains. With our intellect. With unity. With perseverance. And with saying, ‘we will not accept this criminal activity from the very government that we have appointed anymore.’
How You Can Help
Greg Abbott is the Governor of Texas, and he may be reached at (512) 463-2000, or contacted here. He also has a Facebook page.
Ken Paxton is the Attorney General of Texas. He may be reached at (877) 673-6839, or contacted here.
A Facebook page has been set up by supporters for the family – Save Ali Giwa from Harris County Child Protective Services.
“Save Ali Giwa from Harris County Child Protective Service.” Source: Facebook page.
Tammi Stefano of The National Safe Child Show interviews world renowned expert on Munchausen syndrome by proxy, Dr. Helen Hayward-Brown. (Source.)
by Orissa Mora-Kent Health Impact News
Doctors Redirect Blame to Protect Themselves Against Medical Negligence Claims
Dr. Helen Hayward-Brown is a medical anthropologist/sociologist who completed her doctorate on false and highly questionable accusations of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. She completed two post-doctoral fellowships with the Social Justice and Social Change Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney, in addition to her teaching and advocacy work.
Dr. Helen Hayward Brown joins Tammi Stefano on The National Safe Child Show to discuss the widely discredited “Munchausen syndrome by proxy” label. This label has proven to be not only destructive of families but also obstructive of justice.
Tammi Stefano introduces Dr. Helen Hayward-Brown,
We have an unbelievable show tonight. We have a world renowned expert who is addressing an issue that thousands upon thousands of parents are deemed to have Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
This doctor is an expert in this area and she is going to shed light on the facts of what this disorder or this syndrome would entail and how the so called professionals are getting it wrong when they label these parents with this disorder who have lost their children as a result of this mislabeling.
Dr. Helen begins,
I did my doctoral research in relation to false allegations of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. That’s an allegation which is made – it’s a label that is given to mothers who allegedly are harming their children in the medical context in order to get attention and very often this label is assigned to parents where children have an undiagnosed illness or there’s medical controversy over the particular illness the child may actually have and in some cases there are what I call “bad faith allegations” where the allegations are made to protect medical practitioners against medical negligence claims.
Tammi asks,
So to protect the practitioners that are giving this label?
Dr. Helen answers,
Yes, that’s correct.
Dr. Helen explains,
In about 70% of the cases that come to me… usually the parents who come to me are innocent because they are so outraged they want to reach out and contact somebody and generally its known that I have fairly good credibility so it’s known that if I look at a particular case I can usually get to the bottom of it by using biomedical scientists to review all of the medical files and get the experts that are needed to assist.
What actually happens in many of these cases, in about 70%, the mothers pick up that there’s been some kind of medical error. Sometimes they’ve made a complaint, sometimes they’ve actually started legal proceedings, but as soon as that happens very often the parents find that that’s what they’re labeled in and that discredits the mother.
It also means that if the child is removed from the family then the family can’t get a second opinion with what’s going on with the child’s health.
So there are good faith allegations where doctors really believe that there’s harm happening, they may still be wrong about it but it’s done in good faith, and then there are the bad faith ones that happen actually to protect the medical practitioners or the hospital.
Tammi relates,
I’ve seen many cases where CPS deems parents–even though they have no experience–they label parents with this Munchausen syndrome by proxy label.
Dr. Helen states,
The label carries with it moral danger and panic… as soon as anyone in the court system hears that label… the children are removed. Certainly a social worker or case worker should never be making that diagnosis; they’re not qualified. Often they haven’t even met the mother.
Tammi asks,
Where are they getting the information from in order to make this diagnosis?
Dr. Helen answers,
They’ll use general literature or just use file notes on the parents without actually meeting the mother and very often not even meeting the child.
Munchausen is a Misogynous Label Directed at Women
Tammi asks,
Am I to understand that fathers don’t get labeled with this disorder?
Dr. Helen explains,
Very rarely do the fathers, so in fact it is what you might call a misogynous label, it is actually directed at women. About 95% of the cases are women, so it is a way of discrediting women and it’s an excellent tool to use if you want to discredit a woman. The label [Munchausen syndrome by proxy] suggests that a mother should be passive in her interactions with the medical profession.
Very often doctors who are making this type of allegation… there is a certain arrogance involved, because their belief is, “if I don’t know what’s wrong with this child then there’s nothing wrong with the child” and of course that ignores the fact that that particular doctor may not know everything. Just because he doesn’t know what’s wrong with the child doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with the child.
And then of course you have the issue where a lot of mothers are very well educated these days… they’re very motivated to understand what’s going on with their child. In some cases I know that there are very intelligent mothers who often know almost more than the medical practitioners about a particular disease or illness that a child has.
Tammi says,
Right. There’s no sleeping when your child is sick… you’re watching everything. So when you go in to the hospital… you’re telling them in detail–if you can articulate such–what has happened, when it has happened, what resulted… and they look at you like you have overstepped your boundary as a mother.
Dr. Helen says,
Yes, the thing is when you’ve looked after a child from birth, you have an instinctive knowledge also about what’s going on with that child… even if you’re not necessarily a well educated woman… a mother may instinctively know and understand that there’s something wrong.
The medical professionals actually look at statistics, they use statistics and they say “this is what all child should do.” Whereas in fact each child is different and it’s the mother who understands that particular child and their particular problem and really the doctors should be listening to the mothers very closely and learning from them because you have had the time as a mother to be with that child. The medical practitioners just don’t have enough time to spend with the mothers and children.
Doctors Feel Threatened by Symptoms they Don’t Understand
Dr. Helen states,
If you’re a medical practitioner and you’re rushed for time and this parent keeps coming back with this child and they have symptoms that they don’t understand – that’s very threatening to the doctor.
They want to categorize it. If a child comes to them that doesn’t fit into one of those categories, then they have to think of some other category. If it’s an adult then they’ll start to say –“it’s a psychiatric illness, it’s all in the persons head”–but they can’t say that about a young child, they can’t say that the young child has a psychiatric illness so the next thing is to blame the mother and say that the mother has some sort of mental disorder or psychiatric illness and very often that will be Munchausen by proxy. It’s a garbage bin diagnosis.
If the doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong with the child, he can say it’s “Munchausen syndrome by proxy” and that gives him the category, it gives him the label so he can stop looking then for what’s wrong with the child.
Tammi asks,
Is Munchausen syndrome by proxy actually a rare disorder or is it as common as it is being diagnosed to be?
Dr. Helen explains,
It’s certainly not as common as it is being diagnosed, not at all. We shouldn’t use the label at all, it’s not useful. The label just creates prejudice. What doctors should be doing, if they do think a mother is harming the child in a medical context, is to look at the evidence and to look at all of the hard facts and not to be using this emotional label that has prejudice about it because it means then that if you label the mother then everything else that the doctor sees they will see it through that particular prejudicial lens and start to misinterpret what information they’re getting. Doctors need to just look at the facts.
Nearly all of the cases that I’ve come across, they’ve made terrible, terrible errors in these allegations and many, many families are suffering as a result of that.
Tammi asks,
Can you explain to us what a case would look like that would be labeled properly for somebody that does have Munchausen?
Dr. Helen clarifies,
You’re asking me what would actually happen if a parent was guilty of doing something to the child?
Tammi says,
Right. What would be some of the symptoms so that people can be more privy to what that would look like.
Dr. Helen answers,
First, let me go back to the Munchausen by proxy label, the problem with that is – a mother is profiled. She’s regarded as being over caring, overprotective, answering questions all of the time instead of letting the child answer questions, lying, fabricating – this is all part of the profile of MBPS. The profile is not useful, you have to put that aside. Have a look at what is actually happening. If a parent really is harming a child, it may be fairly simple, it may be that the mother is giving the child laxatives to give the child diarrhea.
If the mother is saying, “my daughter has cancer” and shaves the child’s hair off to make it look like she’s having chemotherapy and it’s just not true – that’s an example of a mother really harming a child.
Tammi asks,
That would look like something similar to what Munchausen would look like?
Dr. Helen replies,
Yes. Although I don’t like the label. I think you should describe what the mother may be doing and look at it from that perspective.
Justice Has a Price Tag Many Families Just Can’t Afford
Dr. Helen stresses,
You have to look at the evidence of what’s happening to that child. Make sure that you cover all of the ground and don’t accuse the mother of harming the child when in fact the child may have a rare or unusual illness or even simply severe allergies and sensitivities which are not necessarily easily recognized… which a lot of mainstream medical practitioners simply don’t know how to deal with.
Tammi relates,
Like you said, they don’t have the time to really address these issues in such a capacity that’s necessary.
Dr. Helen advises,
That’s right. We encourage parents to go to a medical integrative doctor who is able to spend more hours and more time with the family to try and get to the bottom of what is wrong with the child, but very often that can be expensive.
Tammi states,
So many families just don’t have the finances. Many of them are on some type of a state insurance, and that is problematic in itself because now the state can look at that, can actually monitor the amount of times that the child is seeing the doctor and communicate with the doctor directly even though they shouldn’t.
Dr. Helen says,
I think that’s very common practice on an international basis.
Seeking a Second Opinion? Beware You Just Might Lose Your Child
Tammi says,
Part of what we have noticed [National Safe Child] is that if a parent wants a second opinion, because the opinion of the first physician–I’m not saying that they’re right or wrong, we don’t know–but that parent caring about their child–they just want to be sure–because the diagnosis is possibly surgery, possibly medication that could potentially be harmful or have long term effects… well as soon as they go for that second opinion… they are “doctor shopping.” Years ago we were encouraged to get second opinions but now for a parent to get a second opinion has the potential of losing your child.
Dr. Helen agrees,
Yes. I know it sounds quite scary but yes I think that is actually the case. It may be that the first doctor really is not able to get to the bottom of what’s wrong with the child… that first doctor will be afraid of being accused of medical negligence.
Tammi relates a question from an audience member,
I want to get into a project that you’re working on and I have one question for you that one of our audience members has asked:
‘What can women diagnosed with this wrongfully, do to prove that they don’t have this disorder, that they’re acting very normally?’
Dr. Helen says that the first thing to do is find a good lawyer or attorney who will get the label removed and try and get expert evidence to show what is happening with the child or at least show an alternative to what is happening with the child.
Dr. Helen advises,
Parents need to recognize that this label has been discredited. This notion that it’s an accepted diagnosis needs to be knocked out of the park. The lawyers should argue that it really should not be used at all.
Someone needs to come in like a biomedical scientist or a medical practitioner or a nurse and go right through all of the medical files and find out what’s really happening. For example, you may find that in fact a doctor may have overdosed a child in error.
Dr. Helen and Tammi go on to discuss how often it is argued that the child became better after being removed from their parents’ custody–that’s not always the case–frequently medications are changed and in those cases the child’s improvement cannot be attributed to their new environment–away from their mother–when in fact their health changed because of a change in prescription.
Dr. Helen advises,
It’s really, really vital that parents get access to all of the medical files, the child protection files, through a good attorney and then these particular issues can be discovered if necessary. It’s very, very important to do all of those things. It’s not easy as you would know but it is possible.
Tammi agrees,
Absolutely.
When “Justice” Operates Behind Closed Doors
Dr. Helen makes a point,
Justice needs to be seen to be done. If justice is done behind closed doors then you have problems with being able to see the process and seeing that the process of justice is actually being done.
There is a lot of fear involved in opening these courts up because there is no familiarity with operating these cases in the full glare of public knowledge. It’s about the fact that the people involved in these court cases, they’re not familiar with it, they’re not familiar with having to operate under full scrutiny so of course they’re afraid and they’re afraid of going back and looking at all of the errors that have been made. So very often you have courts maybe protecting what’s happened previously in court, or you find that a more senior court may protect what a lower court has done.
Tammi asks,
Do you think Helen–from your experience–that there is some type of collusion going on between the judges, the attorneys, the evaluators, the doctors, the hospitals… where they all kind of have gotten together, they’re now comfortable, they’re familiar with each other, they’re affiliated with each other, they’re perhaps friends and they just pick up the phone and make a call and say,
‘hey, I’ve got another case here, send xyz social worker down – I don’t want to deal with this, this is a crazy Mom’?
Dr. Helen replies,
Yes, well I think that what you’re looking at here is the situation where parents very often find themselves in court a bit by surprise. They’re not prepared, they’re not familiar with the processes. They believe that if they tell the truth then it will all be alright in the end.
So you’ve got the belief of the parent and their unfamiliarity with the situation as against the judicial process and the lawyers and case workers and doctors involved who are very familiar with the process and they all as you said, they know each other, so they have a familiarty with each other and they all believe and support each other.
…and of course a doctor has enormous status so how does a parent stand up against that?
Tammi states,
It’s darn near impossible for these parents and that’s why we see so many parents losing their children just because they ask some questions.
Sworn to Protect “Best Interests of the Child” or a Doctors’ Career?
Dr. Helen explains,
Well you see the thing is that once you start asking questions then you may uncover some form of medical negligence or by asking the questions some doctors may see that as ‘oh, well you’re questioning my competency,’ and that is not liked. Very often these cases become not so much about what’s in the best interest of the child but it becomes about protecting the medical career and reputation of the doctor involved. …the children are not heard properly themselves in these cases.
Tammi states,
Often they’re not heard at all… they’re really silenced.
Dr. Helen agrees,
That’s right. Very often an independent children’s lawyer is appointed. I think you might call them guardians ad litem.
Tammi and Dr. Helen go on to discuss that these guardians ad litem and minor’s counsels who are supposed to be representing the best interest of the children often rely soley on what the doctors and the social workers are saying in these cases, without question. Dr. Helen says that often these independent children’s lawyers fail to interview their clients [the children]. Tammi points out that this is illegal [for them to fail to interview their client] but they are protected. Often these failures of the minor’s counsels and guardians ad litem to properly represent their clients are not exposed until much later.
Tammi asks,
What resources can we point attorneys to showing that this Munchausen label has been widely discredited?
Dr. Helen answers,
It’s very important for attorneys to have access to somebody like me who can pick up the clues in the paperwork, the earlier the better in the actual process. The other thing is to get a biomedical scientist as I said to also go through all of the medical documentation to find out exactly what is going on from that perspective and the other perspective is to have a look at prior cases. Case law and precedents.
Dr. Helen explains that she prefers to work as a consultant rather than an expert witness because when working as a consultant she can look at all of the information and data but if she works as an expert witness, her first duty is to the court, not the family. In the role of an expert witness, she would have to isolate herself and stop contact with the family.
She also explains that the label of Munchausen by proxy gets renamed regularly to make it sound more scientific. For example, Munchausen is also known by Factitious Disorder or Medical Child Abuse. It’s actually not a scientific diagnosis and renaming it does not afford it legitimacy.
Dr. Helen advises,
You need to seek out particular practitioners who have actually questioned the diagnosis. People like Dr. Eric [unclear audio]–
Tammi asks,
[interposing] I’m sorry, spell his last name if you would.
Dr. Helen clarifies,
Dr. Eric M-A-R-T is a psychologist who has questioned and queried the manner in which the Munchausen by proxy label is being used in court.
Hearsay Often Admissible in Family Courts, Lawyers Must Argue for Evidence to be Used
Dr. Helen advises,
There are people out there who can be accessed to show that this is not a valid diagnosis, that it’s more likely to be prejudicial than to help a court find out whether or not a mother is harming a child or not.
So it’s really a matter of incredibly hard work and intensive study and research. Parents have to be willing to do a lot of the research themselves because often their attorneys can’t do that for them. So they need to get a team of people if they can with their lawyers permission to go through everything and work through everything and do a lot of the work themselves in terms of finding out exactly what’s happening – getting the documentation, getting witnesses.
Part of the problem, is in a lot of the courts, is to do with the rules of evidence and as you know very often in children and family courts, hearsay evidence can be used rather than rules of evidence – that’s where parents fall into traps.
If possible lawyers need to try and argue that evidence should be used and that hearsay should be knocked out.
Tammi states,
Unfortunately hearsay becomes what is considered factual.
Dr. Helen advises,
The other thing I would strongly, strongly recommend to parents if there’s a lot of medical data involved in their cases, is to go right back to the original source of the material. Don’t accept that a doctor who has written a letter or a summary of some report or some test, don’t accept that on face value. If you go back to the files and go beyond that and ask for the original test results, very often you will find that they’re different than what the doctors are actually saying. I just cannot underline enough how important it is that you go back to the original source of the document, the original scan, the original blood test, all of that.
Tammi says,
Absolutely. We had a parent that was on the show, maybe three or four months ago–Mrs. Amy–and she was accused of some things that were just so ludicrous. They made this poor mom go for these drug test and then they said that she had positive results from the drug test and when she was adamant about getting these tests, lo and behold, the test results were not even hers. They accidentally–“accidentally”–and I put quotes on that if I could, they had her name and another social security number. (emphasis added)
See Amy Duran’s interview here:
Los Angeles County DCFS Horror Story: Baby Kidnapped for Two Years and Innocent Mother Incarcerated
Women Who Dare to Ask Questions
Tammi and Dr. Helen go on to discuss a documentary film that Dr. Helen is working on called Witch Hunt. The film willcontrast the profile of a medieval “witch” with the modern day profile of a mother accused of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Dr. Helen explains that the profiles are exactly the same, which should be an embarrassment to the supposedly “scientific” medical community.Has science not progressed much since the dark ages? Are we still “witch hunting” women because they have the audacity to question, to learn, to know and to disagree?
“Witch Hunt” (Source)
Dr. Helen summarizes,
We’re really basically giving a voice to women whose voices have been silenced.
Dr. Helen and Tammi point out that this can happen to anyone, at any time. Highly educated women and less educated women alike are targets.
Dr. Helen says,
Very often I have found that it’s often the best mothers who actually get accused. For example, I had one case where a mother’s child had trisomy and the child really shouldn’t have lived at all and they didn’t even look to see that the child had trisomy, they didn’t even look at the blood tests because they believed the mother had Munchausen by proxy. In fact the mother was a brilliant mother, and had been feeding the child with an eye dropper and kept this child alive with a particular variant of trisomy. The child could have lived so long.
Are Children Dying because of this Label?
Tammi asks,
Do you think that children are dying?
Dr. Helen,
Oh, I know that they are and that they do.
Tammi asks,
Once a parent gets deemed to have Munchausen, then the child’s illnesses or psychosomatic illnesses are all based on the parent having this disorder, this syndrome; do you find that the physicians in many instances stop looking and they miss really important and necessary–
Dr. Helen answers,
[interposing] Yes, yes most definitely. It’s much easier to say that the mother has Munchausen by proxy or that the mother has Munchausen’s herself than it is to keep on looking and searching, which may be more difficult. Very often we find that these children and parents all suffer from genetic illnesses.
Tammi exclaims,
I would like to deem this a state of emergency worldwide because that’s what I feel. I feel that parents are in a state of emergency with this diagnosis that is bogus. It’s ridiculous!
Dr. Helen shares,
People often say to me, ‘well how can you believe the mothers? how do you know whether to believe them or not?’ but it isn’t a matter of belief as I said to you previously. It’s a matter of looking at the facts and the evidence and the process.
It’s a matter of looking at that and being forensic in your investigation.
Tammi echoes,
The facts are the facts are the facts.
Dr. Helen emphasizes,
Parents need to have an attorney who is willing to listen, who is willing to do the research and who is forensic in their approach.
The week following Tammi Stefano’s interview with Jewels Stein on the The National Safe Child show (see: UCLA Medical Doctors and LA County Medically Kidnap Paramedic and Film Producer’s Daughter), she had Jewel’s daughter Dakotah on the show to get her perspective on being medically kidnapped and alienated from her mother. This was the first time The National Safe Child show interviewed and published the perspective of a victim who is a minor, and Dakota’s mother Jewel gave her consent to allow Dakotah to appear on the show.
Dakotah’s inside perspective gives the public an incredible view of a corrupt system of doctors and social workers that destroys families, and she has a very powerful message she wants heard. Her story also gives hope to the hundreds of thousands other foster children currently trapped in such a corrupt system.
The National Safe Child Show with host Tammi Stefano interviews the daughter of Jewels Stein, Dakotah Hatch
by Susan Parker Health Impact News
Tammi begins:
I want to introduce first, Dakotah Hatch. Dakotah has a story, as you know whoever joined us last week, Dakotah’s mom, Jewels, was on the show to give her version of the victimization that she experienced, regarding, for lack of a better term, medical kidnapping. And then at that point in order to solidify, UCLA hospital, making a decision that they knew better, they then contacted and collaborated with Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services. And from there, a medically diagnosed condition, that caused this young lady to have surgery, where she finally felt relief after a multitude of doctors came in and they couldn’t give a diagnosis.
Today, luckily, we have a happy ending, we have so many dark and sad stories, but yours has been resolved. I want to jump right in to Dakotah’s story and we did touch base with mom last week. Now we are going to give the perspective of the minor child, and we have permission from her custodial parent to have her on. There is nothing from allowing her to be a voice for other young ladies and young gentlemen, who have been thrown in this system and who do feel victimized. Let’s talk about who you are and let’s go back, let’s take a time machine back a couple of years ago.
Dakotah continued:
When I was about fourteen years old, I got sick. At first I thought, ok it is just the flu. Days would go by where I would hold down food, but at night I would end up throwing up everything I ate that day. I started getting really, really bad abdominal pain whenever I would put anything into my mouth. My mom said, ok she needs to see a doctor.
But it was the weekend and the clinic was closed. So she took me in Children’s Hospital, and that’s when they ran tests. They said we don’t know what it is. Then they let me eat food and they witnessed when I ate food I would get this awful stomach pain and I would projectile vomit. They realized we need to keep this kid overnight. They kept me for a few weeks at Children’s Hospital.
Tammi asked:
Did they give you a diagnosis at that time? Did they know what was going on?
Dakotah answered:
They didn’t know. They said it was cyclic vomiting, that is what they diagnosed me with… I thought maybe I was just a little run down. Maybe it was food poisoning or the flu or something because it happened so abruptly. Before all of this I was a happy child. I had my acting and singing. I still managed to have a group of friends and a social life. Everything in my life before I got ill was pretty solid.
Tammi asked:
You get sick and the brakes screeched! Before this you weren’t sick. Did you have any eating disorders?
Dakotah replied:
No, I was happy with myself. I never struggled with anything like major depression. I managed what was going on, I was still very happy…They could take my mom away from me, but they could never take that relationship away.
It was something, obviously, that’s not faking it. The doctor comes in and he watched me projectile vomit and he realized that this kid had issues.
UCLA Medical Doctors Accused Dakotah of an Eating Disorder because She Had Done Some Professional Acting
UCLA Medical Center. Image source.
Tammi asked:
There were some doctors that kind of questioned you a little bit, isn’t that right?
Dakotah replied:
Most doctors didn’t know what was going on. So, they were pulling at straws. I told them my story, how I was doing acting before and everything in my life was going well. And they pulled at straws, oh you were acting, you have an eating disorder probably. Oh Hollywood, maybe your uncomfortable at your weight. And I was like no, absolutely not!
Tammi asked:
Did you ever get excessively thin during all the vomiting?
Dakotah continued:
I did at a point when I was taken back, I lost 20 or 30 pounds, because I wasn’t able to eat anything. That’s when they had to put MJ tubes in me, because they were realizing she isn’t getting any better, she can’t hold down water, she is getting dehydrated.
Tammi commented:
But the strange thing is, you didn’t go in like that. They literally watched you, suffering, in pain. They watched you vomiting your weight out, and then, they blamed you for it!
Dakotah exclaimed:
Yeah, they made it sound like, oh she didn’t want to eat, she was withholding the food, because of Hollywood.
Tammi asked:
You weren’t self-inducing, but the doctors still labeled you with bulimia, rumination, anorexia. You had a total of three stays in Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The longest stay was how long?
UCLA Doctors Put 15 Year Old Dakotah on Morphine and an Eating Tube
Dakotah stated:
“The longest stay was the second stay, and I think I spent three or four months there,” Dakotah answered, “That is when they placed the MJ tubes. They realized I had issues with digestion, I wasn’t digesting my food properly. They still did not know exactly what that meant though. They placed the MJ tubes, it is basically a tube that connects to your intestines and feeds you.”
Tammi continued:
After that, you ended up going to a pediatrician. Because three or four months, hospital visit after hospital visit, doctor visit after doctor visit and nothing, there is no diagnosis and your still vomiting and the pain is excruciating, you need relief.
Dakotah said:
They put me on this MJ tube and they gave me Ativan twice a day, which is like kid morphine. It was just to knock me out, because when I was asleep I wasn’t throwing up. They kind of sent me home with this MJ tube, and I was still throwing up stomach acid even though I wasn’t eating anything by mouth. I was still in a lot of pain and I was still puking all the time. That’s when I went to a different pediatrician who recommended me going to UCLA hospital.
Tammi asked:
You go to UCLA and the pediatrician that recommended you then began treating you or… but then, I’ve done some research and rumors have it that the hospital was angered that she made this recommendation. And she wouldn’t treat you anymore?
Dakotah replied:
No, she backed off. She was a very good doctor, but suddenly they (UCLA) kind of got the case and were hands up in the air, like why did you send her here again.
Tammi continued:
You kept vomiting, it didn’t stop. You’re at UCLA now, you have this tube inside of you and your vomiting is so violent it is disrupting the tube!
Dakotah said:
Yes, I was vomiting so forcefully without eating anything, just vomiting stomach acid. I was vomiting so bad that I ended up throwing up my MJ tubes. They would come up in my neck and they would have to pull it out because it would start choking me. The next time I threw up so forcefully, the whole tube came out.
Tammi said:
This was a real issue, just to show, this was real, this was happening to you. You had people that were looking at you, pointing at you. At one point you said, I felt like a criminal!
Dakota:
They did. It was difficult, because you want people to help you. I don’t like hospitals. I didn’t want to be in the hospital as much as they didn’t want me there. It gets hard because you look to doctors for answers and sometimes they want to blame you and say you have an eating disorder, it is all in your head.
I was in UCLA Hospital for 6 months.
Tammi continued:
Clearly they knew something was wrong, clearly. They should have had enough information and enough time. Months, every day, where there was no separation, where you could have been sticking your finger down your throat. They knew it wasn’t self-induced. Yet, they still continue to blame you for this. You finally had a surgery.
Dakotah affirmed:
I finally had a surgery from a good surgeon at UCLA. He basically cut my stomach open. Because at this time I wasn’t able to eat anything and I was just deteriorating. My IV, my veins were blowing, they couldn’t feed me intravenously. I found out about this surgery and I asked a surgeon about it and he said he would do it. So he cut my stomach open and place a tube that connected to my intestines and another tube that connected to my stomach and basically saved my life.
Tammi noted:
Your mom was by your side all the time. After the surgery, you are recovering. You are hugging each other.
Dakotah said:
I was so grateful to have had the surgery. I was so excited to go back home. Six months in a hospital you just miss your bed. I missed my cat at home, I missed home. I was healthy again.
My Mom Says I’ll Be Right Back but I Didn’t End up Seeing Her until Court
Tammi continued:
Mom was asked to, someone wanted to speak with your mom…
Dakotah:
“The doctors started acting a little weird. There were some doctors that still wanted to send me to rehab recovery center for rumination.
We said, absolutely not, I’m doing better, there is no need for that.
That morning I’m supposed to go home. I’m recovering as planned, everything is going well.
There was a girl who came in and told my mom, hey you need to go to a meeting. My mom says, ok, I’ll be right back, I love you. I didn’t end up seeing my mom until court.”
Dakotah’s voice broke with emotion as she said, “We both just woke up, it was early in the morning and she was there by my side.”
Tammi said:
You were so happy, mom was so happy. She said, “I’ll be right back, we’re going to be packing up and we are finally going home, I love you” and (then she) never came back.
Dakotah continued:
What ended up happening were a few nurse practitioner’s girls started coming in and cleaning out my mom’s side of the room. I thought, ok, they are just helping us pack up. Then a few doctors came in my room, then a few police officers, a security guard. I was like, what is going on?
Tammi asked:
What were you told and who?
Dakotah answered:
The social worker, Sara, I don’t remember her last name. Sara Elizabeth and her last name starts with a K. The social worker who talked to my mom and my dad.
Tammi said:
Your dad and mom were together, at nine years old there was a split and it was very emotional for you. You saw some things your dad did that really hurt you.
Dakotah:
Dad was movie producer, he was gone all the time. When I was nine, my parents divorced and he moved out. I would see him probably once every other year. Through therapy sessions, when I was fourteen years old, I realized I didn’t want that relationship with my father because he wasn’t going to be the person that I needed him to be.
Tammi asked:
How often did you guys visit in a year?
Dakotah answered:
Maybe one hour out of a year.
Tammi:
When you were in the hospital, mom called your dad because everyone was really nervous that this might not have a good outcome, so dad then…
Dakotah continued:
Showed up the night before my surgery and I didn’t want him there.
Tammi stated:
You’re asking for mom, she doesn’t come back. There are all kinds of people in your room, law enforcement, and the social worker…
LA DCFS Social Worker Says Your Mother no Longer Has Custody of You, It is Your Dad or Foster Care
Dakotah said:
Sara basically says to me, along the lines of, your mother no longer has custody of you, your dad has 100 percent custody of you, now.
I start crying hysterically. No, my dad has a history of being abusive, I don’t want to go with him and they basically look at me and say do you want to be in the foster care system? And I said no, absolutely not. They say, ok, we’ll pretend we didn’t hear that.
Tammi:
We’ll pretend that we didn’t hear you, minor child, say that to us because we know what is better for you.
Dakotah continued:
They started screaming at me and they ripped the hospital phone out of the wall and took it with them. They took my computer. They were screaming at me to give them my phone. I was barely able to make a call into my brother to leave him a voice mail what was happening and then they ripped my phone away.
After that day, they had a nurse practitioner sit with me 24/7, all day long. Watch me eat, watch me go to the bathroom. I had to go to the bathroom with the door open as if I was a prisoner, it was like they were treating me like a criminal, like I did something wrong. Obviously, I was very angry and I told the social worker a few not so nice words.
Creating a Generation of Angry Youth Due to Child Social Services
Youth Welcome Center – Brittany, 16, yells: “All you need to know is that I hate this place and I hate the law!” Photo by Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times – Story here.
Tammi said:
I want to touch on what the social worker told you your mom said. This is important because we hear so many horror stories. We see this generation of younger people that are very angry.
And we hear about the crimes that happen and we often wonder what happened in this generational change that caused such violence, caused such anger.
When I look at child protective services and the amount of children who are removed from their household, in many of the cases, the children were really happy with their parents and their anger came when they were removed, because they were removed.
And because of the abuse that they experience, not with their parents, but in the system, in the homes they were placed in, the beatings, the violence, dark and ugly things.
These children don’t speak with their parents sometimes ever again, not for months and by then the damage is done.
When the social worker approached you, you were told that your mom didn’t want to care of you anymore.
Dakotah responded:
She basically said to me, well your mother is relieved. She is glad you are going to go be with your father now. She is relieved she doesn’t have to take care of you. I looked at her and said, I don’t believe you. But, you know, there is that part of you that wonders, is that true or is that not true and I think for a lot of kids, they just believe it because they are put in that situation that is so unbelievable they don’t know what to believe.
Tammi said:
You don’t see your mom. Even if you don’t believe it at the beginning. An hour goes by, a half a day, a day and your mom still hasn’t come and the question does arise. Were they being honest?
Dakotah said:
I felt like they were trying to pick at me to explode and say, oh she is a bad mom. I kept saying the truth, you are taking a kid away from a good home and you are wasting your time on this. I am happy, I am safe. They basically said, you will see your mom in court.
Tammi:
They have a 24 hour nurse and taxpayers beware, that you are paying for that nurse that wasn’t necessary. Your mom did not abuse you and you had a great relationship. You were truly sick. You fought for your life.
If there was any violence that was shown it was by them. You came to realize and I want to quote, “I came to realize that I really wasn’t safe anymore and that nobody was there to help me,” because they took your life source.
Social Workers Reign of Terror
Dakotah answered:
They don’t realize how much they take away from these kids. Not just are they taking their mother away, they take away their family, they take away their home, they take away their community of friends, they take away everything they have known to be safe. That feeling of not feeling safe, it is like being thrown into the ocean without a life raft and being told to swim to land.
Tammi:
You remember thinking for a moment that what they are telling you is true and you feel like I don’t have anyone. I want to hear my mother tell me this then I’ll believe it. There are times when you finally did believe because you didn’t see mom. They don’t have anything else to believe, they think of course she will come back that is my mom and when time goes by they do start to believe and that is when the anger comes in.
Dakotah exclaimed:
I remember getting really angry with the social worker. Your whole life is being turned upside down and I was crying hysterically and I was angry and I was upset.
Tammi continued:
You told the social worker to screw off and you got scared when you saw this happening and you had no power to have a voice, you were silenced.
Dakotah said:
They took away my voice. It was the realization I had that being in the hospital, I remember apologizing to the social worker because I knew she would write reports. I had to swallow my pride, I said I am sorry for saying “screw off.” I was very upset. It is a miscommunication you have with my mother. You have no reason, no evidence. She ended up writing in her report that I was aggressive and dangerous and angry.
Tammi responded:
You had a tube handing out of your stomach and you were in the hospital for six months. You cried so you were mentally unstable because normal people don’t cry when they lose their lives. You said you came to realize that this social worker held the power of your life.
Dakotah said:
I knew she had the power to keep me away from my mother. She had the power to have the case going. If she had the power to make my mother lose custody then she had the power of my future and it was beyond scary. I was petrified.
Tammi inquired:
You remember hearing her interviewing your dad in the hospital. Before all of this, you felt like when she interviews me I am going to be able to explain to her there has been a grave mistake, but she never interviewed you?
Dakotah responded:
She never interviewed me once. I wasn’t on any drugs anymore, the medication they gave me, and I was able to talk and she never once talked to me.
Tammi said:
She told you she wasn’t going to be working on the case. That all she did was take children away from their parents. Imagine, somebody coming in having their life stripped and then having a social worker saying, my only duty here is to make sure that children are taken away from their parents…Another social worker came on your case and you disclosed even more to her. You disclosed some abuse you had experienced as a younger child in the presence of your dad’s family and from your dad. You had never disclosed that before, because you were safe, you were with your mom.”
One Good Social Worker Finally Takes Action
Dakotah said:
Social workers were already not wanting me to be in his custody because they realized, he is lying to us. I felt safe at that time to disclose it to a social worker.
Tammi said:
So you did have a good social worker on your case. There are so many corrupt social workers that I want them jailed.
But, I don’t want to negate the fact that there are some really good social workers. We acknowledge you and all of your hard work. She helped you and she got you out of your dad’s house. She saw clearly and she did an immediate order to remove you from your dad’s house. Even though the other ones had done everything to make sure you were in your dad’s house, even though they knew the danger that they were putting you in.
Dakotah continued:
I remember she asked me, why didn’t you tell anybody before about your dad being abusive? And I said, I did, but nobody listened.
Tammi stated:
As a matter of fact, you were threatened, if you want me to go forward I will do you a favor young child and pretend I never heard that. Otherwise, we will put you in foster care. This plagued your life from 15 years old until April 16, 2015. They finally released you back to your mom. A social worker wrote that…
Good Social Workers Are Removed from Cases
Dakotah said:
A good social worker got removed from my case.
Tammi:
This is a pattern situation when social workers, good, honest social workers who are doing their job, do the right thing, whatever that might be…She did her job, she investigated properly and she saw the urgency to remove you immediately. The Department of Children and Family Services stepped in and removed her immediately, and that was sad for you.
Dakotah exclaimed:
Being through this journey, before that I had a social worker that I would talk to and she said, I am going to tell your dad everything you just told me.
Dakotah Testifies in Court – Judge Apparently Sees the Truth
Tammi:
Imagine, I am going to tell your dad everything you just told me! What the bad social workers are doing, is they are creating such a fear within these children, that they lose their trust, they lose their voice and the only thing they are creating an angry, pissed off child that is enraged and hurt and traumatized. You got out, so many kids, Dakotah, haven’t gotten out, they are still stuck there. You were finally allowed to testify in court, tell me about that.
Dakotah responded:
When I was finally able to testify, all my lawyers and the social workers kept saying, don’t testify. No, I’m going to testify. I’m going to testify, I’m going to say the truth. I’m going to say what I know, my story, in my eyes. Because it was my story. Once I testified, I think the judge, I lifted my shirt and showed them my tube. I think that was a point when they realized this isn’t Munchausen, this isn’t rumination.
Tammi asked:
How do you know that word Munchausen?
Dakotah replied:
Because that is what they said your mother is being accused of Munchausen when I went the first court day. They said your mother is being accused of Munchausen by Proxy. I was like, what is that? Basically they caused you to be sicker. I think once I testified, the judge saw this was a very unjust case.
Doctors Abusing Power
Tammi:
Even though, so many mom’s especially have been diagnosed when they go into the system with Munchausen. We never hear the kids talk about what the social workers are telling them that their parents have and we know with everything that is out there, Munchausen is such a rare disorder. They felt like your mom was a mastermind who had the ability to talk doctors and surgeons into performing a medical procedure against any medical diagnosis, they are pretty crazy. Do you remember the doctors?
Dakotah said:
I remember them very vividly. These doctors were reaching for straws, they didn’t know what was wrong, and they were just accusing me that it was rumination or it is all in her head. Even psychiatrists came in and said no this kid does not have a mental issue, this is not rumination. They basically told us, you signed your rights away.
Tammi:
You said, Tammi, I felt like I was an experiment for them and they were experimenting with my body.
Dakotah replied:
There are some doctors out there that don’t understand that their patients are human beings and they have feelings. They viewed me as their little science experiment.
Tammi:
Let’s name the doctors, do you remember their names?
Dakotah answered:
Dr. Lee, Dr. Ross and Dr. Deukmedjian.
Tammi asked:
Those three doctors changed the path that your life was taking. Do you think they just innocently made a mistake?
Dakotah answered:
I don’t think that they will ever view themselves as being in the wrong. I feel like they didn’t want to admit that they knew what was wrong with me so they just pointed the finger.
Dakotah’s Message to Other Foster Kids Abused by the System
Tammi:
The good pediatrician was taken off of being able to take care of you, the good social worker was taken off of your case. You had surgery, you lost your mom, your social life. Your acting career put on hold. You stop believing in a system, you stop believing in adults.
If you could look right into the camera for the kids right now that are not with their parents, what would you tell them to reassure them? Because you were told, your mom doesn’t care anymore, your mom is tired of taking care of you.
Dakotah answered:
What I would say is, you can’t trust what they say, you have to trust and believe in your parents. You grew up with these people, you know what they would say, you know what they would do, and you know the difference between right and wrong. The point is, never give up hope, to always believe that even though your voice was taken away now, won’t forever be taken away. To understand that, even though you are so filled with anger right now, you can’t let them break you. You can’t let the system destroy you, because that is what they want, they want to destroy you…I think it is to have hope. Karma will get whoever was in the wrong, and eventually, justice will be brought to your case.
Tammi stated:
You said nobody will ever understand the trauma.
Dakotah:
These social workers don’t understand the long term affects. They view these kids as just their job. They don’t understand that these kids, when you take them away from everything they have known to be safe.
You take their family, their friends and their home it and their stability away, and it destroys them. It has these long term affects where they feel as if they can never feel safe again.
I know that I don’t feel like I could ever feel safe again. I still get panic attacks when people knock at my door because I think it is DCFS. I don’t know if that will go away by the time I’m an adult.
You grow up and you think, I don’t want to have kids because I don’t want them to be taken away. I don’t think people understand what happens to these kids even after they have their happy ending. Even after whatever is gone, I don’t think people understand the affects that they deal with to this day.
The National Safe Child Show, hosted by Tammi Stefano, covers topics involving the safety of children, addressing corruption and systemic failures that place children in harm’s way.
Tammi recently interviewed Jewels Stein, a mother who had her daughter taken by Los Angeles County’s Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) following accusations of Munchausen by proxy by UCLA medical physicians.
Jewels Stein is a paramedic with the Fire Department who has an extensive medical background. She works on movie sets, and she is currently producing a documentary. She raised four of her own children and two step children.
Daughter’s Medical Needs
Jewels related how her daughter has a history of autoimmune disorder, diagnosed by a pediatrician. Her daughter’s ANAs (antinuclear antibodies) were high on blood work. The doctors could not give them a specific diagnosis.
On October 14, 2013, her daughter’s symptoms escalated to a point that Jewels had to take her to the hospital. Her daughter woke up in the middle of the night with projectile vomiting.
Jewels said,
“We were at family’s house for a birthday party, she woke with abdominal pain and vomiting. We drove back home and she was treated at home until it kept getting worse. When she ate she would cry and scream. By day three it started earlier in the day, I said O.K. this is not flu, something is wrong. I took her to Los Angeles Children’s Hospital.”
Tammi asked,
“So how did that go?”
Jewels responded,
“When she got to the E.R., the doctor really took it very seriously because her pain was at such a high level. They tested her for everything. The first thing he thought was pancreatitis. They pretty much subsequently ruled everything out and they were going to send us home. I said it seems after she eats it gets worse so can you feed her before I take her home. Sure enough they fed her some food, because they had NPO (nothing by mouth) her at this point.”
Tammi asked,
“How old was she at this time? And can we say her name?”
Jewels responded,
“She was 15, Dakotah.”
Dakotah, 15 Years Old, Hospitalized by Doctors for Three Months with No Medical Diagnosis
Jewels continued,
“Three months we would be in Children’s Hospital, because she continued to vomit and the doctor’s couldn’t find out why… I would be in the hospital with her all day and all night and just watching her suffer.
They would take her off of food completely for five days and send her home. As soon as she started eating or drink again she would become dehydrated and couldn’t keep food down.
The one clue I had was she would crave protein, like eggs. She had eaten it for breakfast and she had some rice for lunch.
She ended up getting really bad and we ended up taking her back to the E.R. When we got there, she started to vomit what she had eaten for breakfast and by this time it was 4:00 pm in the afternoon. I told the doctor, this has to be a really important sign, please call the gastroenterologist and tell her.”
Tammi asked,
“You’re the mom, the doctors see her for x amount of time along with hundreds of other children. But you’re watching one person, your person, your baby and so you would know better. Good doctors rely on parents who do keep a close eye on their children. Did they appreciate all the work you had done?”
Jewels answered,
“I had some doctors that were amazing. They would talk to Dakotah to get a thorough history, they would talk to me to get a thorough history, and they would listen to me. I had other doctors that were not like that, but you try to negotiate through this field of doctors.”
Tammi stated,
“So there were good doctors. You are talking to them. They are admitting her again. You are saying I have noticed something that is very substantial to what is happening here. We have already been in the hospital for months, the symptoms are still continuing, there has been no diagnosis that has solidified.”
Jewels continued,
“What they did from there, they did something called a delayed gastric emptying test. It is where they feed the child radioactive food and they put them in an x-ray machine and watch the food passing.
They have to go to sleep in there. They lay there for about four hours while the food is supposed to be passing through.
I sat outside and read a book and watched it and could see it wasn’t moving. She failed the gastric emptying test. That was showing there was something physiologically happening to her, there was something wrong.
Then Children’s Hospital brought in another specialist who gave her this very invasive, horrible test and basically said based on this test that went really wrong. They were supposed to feed her 1500 calories within a ten minute period during this test while they had put her under, and put 38 feet of tubing through here entire body and intestines.
It was the most agonizing thing, if I had known, this test was so invasive, I would have never, it’s called a motility test, and I would never have done it. During this test, Dakotah had woken up because she had to be put under with anesthetic and she woke up and her throat was really messed up and raw. They were trying to make her eat a sandwich. And they were waking her up from anesthetic and she was not wanting to wake up.”
Tammi stated,
“And your baby is looking at you like, ‘Mom help me.’ ”
Jewels said,
“Based on this test, two of the doctors there said that she passed the motility test.
Which I disagreed with because it went awry. Based on that they tried to say that she had an eating disorder now. They tried to say rumination, where people have to be trained to eat.
She continued to have cycles of pain and vomiting every five minutes while we were still in children’s hospital. Pediatric doctors said that she had cyclic vomiting. The gastroenterologist came to us and said it’s going to come down to her being fed through a tube. I started crying and Dakotah started crying.”
Jewels continued,
“They gave her pain medication, they gave her morphine because her pain was so excruciating. Basically, they sent us home with a tube that went through her nose and down in her intestines. They sent us home with an array of medication that I had to give her every day, including valium.”
LA County DCFS Falsely Accused Jewels of Starving her Daughter to Death
Tammi asked,
“Clearly you have a long history with Children’s Hospital with specialists. They were respectful with you. One day that all changed. Do you remember what day that was?”
Jewels stated,
“It was at the end of January in the year 2014. At this point, my family and friends, I have friends that are lawyers and doctors and they were telling me, you need a new pediatrician. You need to get somebody to be the person who is going to be the director to her medical needs. She needs help and you have got to have somebody to champion this child’s cause to get a definite answer what is happening and how to fix it.
So I went to this wonderful doctor in the Pacific Palisades that was recommended. She saw Dakotah in the office and Dakotah started projectile vomiting right there in front of her in the middle of the floor.
She said I have never seen a child sicker that’s not in the hospital. I’d like to send you to a hospital for a second opinion. You can choose between these hospitals and she said UCLA. I’m going to admit her on Monday.
That Friday I got a knock on the door, I opened the door and there were two sheriffs and an emergency social worker. A Department of Child Family Service Emergency Social Worker. Because I have been a paramedic for years I didn’t let them in my house. I said I was a former paramedic and I know how this works. I asked, what is the problem?
They responded that we got a report that you are starving your child to death and you are only feeding her Tic Tacs.”
Tammi stated,
“Let’s tell the audience, the police come to your house. Sheriffs are there, they make this allegation…”
Jewels said,
“I bring Dakotah downstairs, she is dressed in clean pajamas. Her IV pole, I help her carry it downstairs. I told the social worker, you can come in, the police can’t, but you can.
She said I can’t come in without them. I told her you can set on couch with my daughter, I go upstairs and leave her alone with my daughter.
The woman was wonderful. She said everything is fine Jewels you don’t have anything to worry about.
We get these calls from time to time. Everything looks fine, your daughter is sick but she looks like she is being well cared for.
The next day, my daughter gets worse. She started to vomit blood. She was throwing up so long this green bile was coming up. She is throwing up and screaming. We ended up going to UCLA on Sunday.”
Surgery “Saves Daughter’s Life”
Tammi continued,
“You go to UCLA. Did they end up doing a surgery?”
Jewels replied,
“Yes, it saved her life in my opinion.”
Tammi inquired,
“How long were you there, from that day until the day she got out of surgery?”
Jewels stated,
“It was January, February and into March. It was three months.”
Tammi continued,
“Folks, even though she is a working woman… You couldn’t work because this is your baby, and she is suffering and no one knows what’s going on. So you would literally sleep at the hospital six days a week.”
Jewels said,
“I didn’t have any means to pay my bills but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The only thing that mattered was she was crying, ‘Mom, don’t leave me mom.’ Here I had some of the most renowned specialists in the world telling me they don’t know what is wrong! Now we’ve got blood. Is she going to die? I was so scared!”
Tammi asked,
“What day did she have her surgery, the successful surgery?”
Jewels said,
“I believe it was, the week of February, the first week in March. Basically, it stopped her from vomiting.”
Doctors Disagree – Want to Put Daughter in Psych Ward
Tammi asked,
“She had a tube in her stomach, right? You’re so relieved. This is over it really worked, and she is recovering.”
Jewels said,
“There were three clinicians…The one doctor said to me, ‘You have to tell us the truth.’ “
Tammi asked,
“Do you remember the doctor?”
Jewels responded,
“His name is Dr. Nathan Lee, he is a clinician at UCLA.”
Tammi said,
Folks if you have ever had or your children have ever had Dr. Nathan Lee from UCLA and you have had a bad experience, would you please email “help at nationalsafechild.com”
Jewels continued,
“The major doctor was Grace Deukmedjian. She was the head of that department. She was horrible! Because she actually fought with me. She yelled at me in front of my child, she yelled in front of the interns.”
Tammi asked,
“Why did she yell at you?”
Jewels responded,
“Because she kept telling me that she was presuming it was an eating disorder and I kept telling her, ‘No it’s not.’ And then the gastroenterologist and neurologist and psychiatrist and all the other doctors are agreeing that it is cyclic vomiting and that she has an issue.
But they’re still coming to me. Grace Deukmedjian, Catherine Ross and Nathan Lee, all from UCLA, the clinicians, they all were saying at the bottom of every entry they made that it was an eating disorder and they would not take no for an answer. Even after Dakotah stopped vomiting and was healed from the surgery.
These people came in and told her that she would have to go to an eating disorder clinic in Ohio, it is a mental clinic. They wanted to do what they did to Justina Pellitier, take my daughter and put her in a mental ward for 16 months like they did her. I kept telling them ‘No, Dakotah is actually eating.’ “
Tammi exclaimed,
“She wants to eat, she just doesn’t want to keep projectile vomiting!”
Doctors Take Away Medical Rights
Jewels said,
“But she could eat! That was the miracle! And I said to the doctor, ‘Let us show you, she has been eating…’
They came to me and said we are going to put her on a bunch of antidepressants and I said, ‘No.’ What happened was they brought me a piece of paper and said they were taking my medical rights away.
Dr. Grace Deukmedjian, she said that they were going to give Dakotah the medication they wanted to give her, whether I agreed to it or whether Dakotah agreed with it or not.
I called a friend of mine who is a doctor and said this doesn’t sound right. She said to me it is based on the fact that I signed the admission slip in the emergency room. I said I have signed a lot of admission slips in emergency rooms and I have never relinquished my medical rights to make decisions for my daughter.”
Tammi advised,
“Folks, when you take your child to the hospital, it isn’t just a matter of signing. You have to look at what you are signing. You have to cross off that fine print that you disagree with and put your initials there, because that becomes legally binding that you are not agreeing to that and you have to write that. You didn’t think to do that because you had been in and out of the hospital. But it was what cost you.”
Jewels said,
“So they did that and my friend said, ‘Jewels, just shut up go sit in the corner and don’t fight with Deukmedjian anymore, don’t fight with Lee and don’t fight with Ross, just let them have their way.’
In the meantime, the gastroenterologist are coming in, they are saying ‘You are doing fine Dakota. You can start eating whenever you want,’ and treating her like a normal patient should be treated.”
Tammi asked,
“Were they collaborating with this other group?”
Jewels said,
“They weren’t even communicating it seemed, because one wasn’t even listening to the other. And I couldn’t understand why there were trying to take my child who is now healed away and send her to an eating disorder clinic where they have to learn how to eat a piece of rice. They tried to get me to change my medical insurance to Med-Cal when we were in the hospital. I found out later, that if I had changed it, they would have sent her off right away.”
Tammi asked,
“Did social workers come to the hospital?”
Jewels said,
“During this period, the day before my daughter’s surgery, her father, who has not been in her life for seven years, came the day before surgery. I had been calling him this whole time, during Thanksgiving, during Christmas, all this time.
It finally took a friend of ours, who is in a very high place in the movie industry, who has the ability to give him work because my former husband is a film producer. Because I think that person got involved is why he came.
This is when my doctor friend told me to shut up and go sit in the corner and not engage with Dr. Deukmedjian any further. Just let them do what they were going to do with Dakotah and then once I get her out of there we can take her to a doctor of our choosing. At that time, my ex-husband comes in and I had stepped aside, I wasn’t going to talk to the doctors at all. One day I heard him saying something and I was like, I thought I heard you through the door saying ‘She this and she that…’ ”
Tammi continued,
“He is talking to the social workers behind closed doors…”
Day Daughter was to be Discharged from Hospital, Mother Escorted Out of Hospital in her Pajamas
Jewels said,
“There was only one social worker that I was told was going to follow up and then close the case. And they asked me to sign everything, so I signed everything. Now in retrospect I would not have signed everything. I signed everything except for my employers, that they couldn’t contact my employers. But I had nothing to hide. But it doesn’t matter, they will turn everything against you.”
Tammi inquired,
“After the surgery were you escorted by security out of the hospital?”
Jewels answered,
“Several days later, we were supposed to be discharged. Dakotah and I were so happy. We were ready to put our lives back together. That’s when they called me to a meeting. They presented me with a piece of paper and said they are taking custody of my daughter.”
Tammi said,
“When Jewels explained this to me in the beginning she explained that she was smiling, like this was a joke.”
Jewels said,
“I really thought ‘Are you guys playing a joke on me, this is not reality.’
I was escorted in my pajamas and flip flops, I did not have my keys I did not have my purse. I was escorted out by the police, I was hysterical. My daughter has gone through hell and back again. Now you are going to take her mother from her. She is trying to heal, I don’t understand. They hand me a piece of paper and say be back here in 72 hours.”
Tammi said,
“In a nutshell, what did they allege that you did wrong that justified the state coming to the hospital and stripping your daughter from you, her mother?”
Jewels answered,
“They said fictitious disorder, but it falls under Munchausen. Fictitious disorder according to them was that I caused my 15 year old daughter to exaggerate symptoms so she could get attention from doctors and get her body probed with tests.”
Tammi continued,
“This attention almost cost you your home, right, because you couldn’t work? This attention cost you many jobs that were great. That’s the kind of attention that they allege that you wanted, that you put on your child. Munchausen by proxy otherwise known as Factitious Disorder.”
UCLA Medical Doctor, Brenda Birch, is a Hired Gun for the State against Parents Falsely Accused of Munchausen by Proxy
Brenda Birch, UCLA Medical Center.
Jewels said,
“I hate Munchausen by proxy. I have been doing a lot of research on this, there is a specialist named Helen Hayward Brown, from Australia, who is the biggest advocate against Fictitious Disease and Munchausen by proxy. Helen Hayward Brown she is a doctor out of Australia, she is an expert witness against these cases.
There is a person at UCLA and I’ve since heard that UCLA has made a habit of looking at these cases predominantly because they have a doctor there named Doctor Brenda Birch, who is also the doctor who testified in Justina Pellitier’s case, who has written books on Fictitious Disorder and has made a habit of going after parents.”
Tammi stated,
“Brenda Birch, and so, Brenda is in UCLA, but she is also in Arizona, she travels all over the country…”
Jewels explained,
“She is the expert witness against the parents when it comes to Munchausen or Fictitious Disorder.”
Tammi continued,
“There was covert recording of attorneys speaking about this Dr. Brenda Birch and they said she was the hired gun for the state and they were laughing about it.”
Jewels stated,
“One of the things that Dr. Hayward Brown brought up, it is disheartening to me, it paints the characteristics of the mother that has Munchausen or Fictitious Disorder and it says here that the mother makes complaints about medical negligence, that the parent asks too many questions about the child’s medical care and the parent seeks a second opinion.
So, yes, I did ask a lot of questions about my daughter’s medical care, and I did seek a second opinion. It is disheartening to me because it presents a pretty scary situation and it even talks to that the parents are too assertive and they become involved in their child’s care.
In this day and age, I came from being a paramedic in a man’s world, I had to be assertive, it’s my nature, it’s my character, it’s who I am… It’s presenting a bad situation where parents are going to be afraid to go forth and afraid to ask questions and afraid to take their children to the doctors.
Once you are branded with this Munchausen by proxy or Fictitious Disorder, which is what they say in the juvenile court system, you are guilty until proven innocent. I told my public defender, how do you prove innocence from something that is fictitious? It is fictitious in every way, it’s not just fictitious disorder, it is made up and it’s basically a witch hunt against parents who give doctors problems. I’ve even seen on the internet that doctors can negate a malpractice suit by saying a parent has Munchausen by proxy.”
Jewels continued,
“The thing I found out when I was at UCLA, when Dr. Grace Deukmedjian started yelling at me and started to be inappropriate, I asked for a medical liaison, every hospital has one. A medical liaison is someone that comes and deals between the doctor and the parent.
What I didn’t know until I left, is that Brenda Birch is that hospital liaison. So when you call and you’re in trouble and you’re worried sick about your kid and you are arguing with the doctor. You want to have some say here comes Brenda birch and she is your friend, but she is not. I was very fortunate she was testifying against another parent across country.”
Mother Fights 13 Months to Get Daughter Back
Tammi asked,
“You lost custody of your child, Dakota, for how long?”
Jewels answered,
“I fought to get my daughter back for thirteen months.”
Tammy said,
“Folks, thirteen months. This mom has been taking care of her child above and beyond, willing to put her career aside, willing to lose her home to make sure her child was O.K. and her health was restored. Finally, after her health was restored they take you out of the hospital they take your child away.”
Tammi said,
“She is not a medical doctor, she has a PhD. That is not a medical doctor.”
Tammi continued,
“When you went into court, children’s court, you must have walked in and said, thank God I’m out of there. I am going to approach this judge. I am a professional, I am an upstanding citizen in my community.”
Jewels said,
“I will tell you what happened to me, I was left on the sidewalk at UCLA in Westwood, California without my purse, and I was in my pajamas. I was escorted out, I couldn’t say goodbye to my daughter.
I was crying, it was the worst day of my life. I couldn’t imagine what my daughter was going through. She had gone through hell, this was finally her moment and now she is having her life literally ripped away from her; her home, her bed, her community, her friends, her acting career, everything gone in an instant. Now she is being threatened with foster care.”
Jewels Stein Established the Organization “Kidz Deserve a Voice” for the Children Taken By Child Protective Services
Tammi said,
“Tell me about the documentary, folks we are going to continue. Now if you want to find out you have to return to listen to more. What happened to you is right out of a horror movie. To think that Child Protective Services protects children. Did they protect your child? Did they hurt your child? I will leave you with this folks there was some medical things done afterwards that really caused your child some damage all under the auspice of Child Protective Services.”
Jewels said,
“I started Kidz Deserve a Voice. We have to change that by creating a bill that will give these children rights. We need to come together in numbers in masses. We need to protest on city hall, we need to get a better situation for parents that we can do reunification of families.
We don’t want children taken out in the middle of the night out of their beds and put into police cars. We should change that warrant to make it a 72 hours warrant where the parents will be able to come to court with their children and plead the case.”
Tammi asked,
“Give us the name of your website?”
Jewels answered,
“It’s called Kidzdeserveavoice.org“
Trauma of Being Medically Kidnapped Continues After Child Returns Home
Jewels continued,
“My daughter is still healing from her emotional ordeal now.”
Tammi quotes Bob Powell, a Northern California attorney,
“One night being removed from your parent’s home could be a lifelong traumatic situation.”
Jewels continued,
“It is PTSD for kids. They don’t know what has happened to them and they don’t know how to get help. We need to be there for them.”
Tammi stated,
“I want to take a moment to dedicate this show to my dad who is very ill and has been told he doesn’t have long. I want to tell you dad that I love you and thank you for all that you have done.”
Jewels closes with,
“I want to put a shout out to MedicalKidnap.com It is a site online that is reaching out to all of these parents that are victimized by DCFS or CPS and they are writing these articles and exposing these stories. Keep up the good work, they are amazing. I subscribe to them and get these stories daily.”
Tammi said,
“You get them daily. Which means that this type of criminal activity that is only established to protect – MedicalKidnap.com is showing that they are not really protecting. MedicalKidnap.com and kidzdeserveavoice.org.”
Tammi Stefano interviewed Amy Duran on Friday August 28th on The National Safe Child Show. Amy is a mother who had her son taken by Los Angeles County’s Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) with the help of the Police Department. Vindictive people used DCFS and local law enforcement to kidnap Amy’s son, and to put Amy into a holding cell in a detention center where she was told she would spend the next 12 years, even though she had violated no laws and was not convicted of any crimes. During this time, Amy fainted several times, and could not tell the difference between night and day as there were no windows in the cell.
Amy never gave up, however. She fought back, and over three and a half years later she won her case and had her son returned to her custody. Her son was kidnapped by DCFS when he was 11 months old, and at age 4 he has now spent half of his life away from his mother and in foster care with strange people.
Here is Amy’s story, showing an example of how LA County DCFS does not protect children, but destroys families.
Police Forced Their Way in Without Warrant
Tammi stated,
“You had some problems with extended family members and you addressed by seeking law enforcement’s help. Your extended family then turned on you with a whirl wind of allegations against you to Child Protective Services. You are at home one evening,”
Amy responded,
“I was home one evening, it was right after the holidays. I was cooking dinner and my son was sleeping. I used half a bottle of wine to marinate a turkey and put it in the refrigerator and pre-heated my oven. And who throws away the rest of a good bottle of wine? I poured the wine for myself and my son had went down for a nap. His father was planning to fly in that evening.”
Tammi continued,
“But instead of his father coming to the door, someone else came to the door right? And who was that?”
Amy responded,
“The police. I had a metal screen door and it was locked. I asked them through the screen, ‘do you have a warrant?’ I told them it wasn’t a good time, my son was sleeping.”
Tammi inquired,
“And you asked them if they had a warrant? And did they have a warrant?”
Amy responded,
“No, they forced their way in claiming they did not need a warrant because they smelled gas.”
Tammi explained,
“They smelled gas, so they said they don’t need a warrant in this case because this is an emergency,”
Amy stated,
“They came in and searched my home for half an hour and they never evacuated myself or my son from the home. We sat together in the living room. I don’t know what they were searching for, but they found an unopened bottle of anxiety medication on the counter that I had picked up that morning.”
Tammi asked,
“What happened after that?”
Police Officer Admits He Has Power to Use CPS to Gain Custody of Children
Amy continued,
“The search was really wild. I actually tried to stop them and I asked them again, do you have a search warrant to search my home? And they again responded, ‘No.’ I told them I was not OK with this. The head officer, the lead officer, his name is Officer Gray, proceeded to tell me that he was going through a divorce and he was using CPS to successfully negate a costly custody battle. And he had his wife charged with alcohol and prescription pill abuse. He even told us her name, Audrey Gray. He said she will never see her children again, and I want to let you know I have that kind of power.”
Tammi states,
“Well, that is really concerning. We hear so many cases like this, but to have a police officer come in your home and tell you this about his situation and how he’s using this, it’s really emotionally horrific. You must have been on a psychological roller coaster thinking why is this man telling me this? You had a glass of wine, you didn’t hide it from them. Your oven was going. Did they call the fire department?”
Amy responded,
“They did, actually, it was probably a half an hour after they had searched my home. And prior to calling the fire department, Officer Gray and another officer had a disagreement in my living room with each other, regarding, I could only get bits and pieces, but why should we call the fire department?”
Tammi interjects,
“One wants to call the fire department to cover their butts, and the other one says, the heck with it we don’t have to call the fire department because we rule the roost,”
Amy responds,
“In fact, on the police call log, they called in code 4, which means that everything is OK,”
Tammi asks,
“And you have that call log?”
Mother Cleared by Drug and Alcohol Tests but Loses Son and is Incarcerated Anyway
Amy said,
“Yes, I do. And at some point, things just went from bad to worse. I never resisted, I just went along with whatever they told me to do, because at some point I figured that this would just go away. They asked me to take a drug test and I said sure. They drove me to the hospital a few blocks away, where they did a blood test which came up negative for any drugs. I was within the legal limit of drinking alcohol. They still proceeded to take my son into care and myself into the jail that they have there, what is it called? The holding cell.”
Tammi asked,
“Fire department came though? They used their decimeter to measure the gas content?”
Amy answered,
“Oh, yes, they did,”
Tammi Stefano, host of The National Safe Child Show, interviews Amy Duran, mother who was falsely accused of child endangerment by Los Angeles County DCFS.
Tammi continues,
“Here’s when I became involved, some of the questions that I asked, just hearing it, maybe you’re asking the same questions. Did the fire department come in – did they use their decimeter to measure the amount of gas that was in the interior of the home? – Number one. Number two – let’s not forget the door was never shut, the screen door has ventilation, so if there was gas in there how strong could it be? Number three – this is a single family home and who could be near there, who’s going to smell gas? Along with the fact that you had gone to the police department that very morning, hadn’t you?”
Amy responds,
“I actually had gone to the police department that very morning and requested to file a harassment,”
Tammi continued,
“Against your extended family. They knew your extended family, didn’t they? They were friends? So folks, they were friends. There was an acquaintance of some sort. Some sort of a friendship, or they were acquaintances and it ended up that they wouldn’t take your report from you and soon thereafter, all of this happens. Now, who else comes in? Did anyone else come into your home besides law enforcement and the fire department?”
CPS Takes Custody of Child
Amy replies,
“CPS,”
Tammi says,
“CPS gets called and they come in and this little boy is being taken away and watching his mother. And even at 11 months it’s traumatic and there are studies that show this. There are an abundance of studies that show that children remember these events, even very young infants. They took you away, they took your son away. And the next thing you know, you are in a holding cell. They accused you of being on drugs and being intoxicated. Your alcohol level was below the legal limit.”
Mother Put into Holding Cell in Detention Center to Serve 12 Years
Amy said,
“I was taken to the Bob Wiley Women’s Detention Center,”
Tammi asked,
“What did they charge you with?”
Amy replied,
“I was charged with felony child endangerment and that I was not getting out. I was serving 12 years – it was a lot for me to process, I fainted a few times. I was denied phone calls.”
Tammi continued,
“They never gave you a phone call. They never read you your rights. They kept telling you over and over, what?”
Amy replied,
“You’re not going to see your child ever again. I fainted and they put me in a padded cell right next to the infirmary for five days. I couldn’t see light or day. The most hurtful part of it was I had no idea where my son was.”
Tammi states,
“This is why we do this show, this is why UBN advocates for children.”
Drug Testing Required for 3.5 Years – Results Were Falsified
Amy goes on to state that she had to go for drug testing randomly every week for three and a half years, even though there were no drugs found in her system originally. According to Amy, she had two dirty drug tests. Amy states that,
“The first dirty test, the CSW (Child Social Worker) called me and said you have a dirty drug test, you need to come into the office and meet with us. I spent the whole night looking at the paperwork. How can this be? I found that the driver’s license number and the social security number were not mine, but it was my name at the top of the test.”
Amy said that she contacted the social worker and said, “This isn’t me.” Most parents in this situation feel so victimized and might not question an error like this, but rather accept their fate. Tammi advises that parents should always demand their paperwork or contact the lab testing facilities, if they know the test is not correct.
Amy had to attend a six month outpatient treatment program, and two and a half years of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings, even though she was not taking drugs or drinking in excess. Amy also graduated from numerous parenting classes. If she did not do what they demanded, she would not get her son back.
Mother Goes through 7 Judges – Where is the Justice?
Tammi asked,
“You went through how many judges?”
Amy replied,
“I think I had seven judges, commissioners and judges – at Edelman Children’s Court.”
Amy continued to do everything that DCFS asked of her, until finally, after completing three case plans she had enough.
Tammi stated,
“This case is so horrific. That when they make a decision that they don’t like you, that they have a friend that doesn’t like you, they call the department or law enforcement.”
Amy continued,
“Once they target the parent, there is no changing the course.”
Tammi inquired,
“You’re in this courtroom for three and a half years. Your son has lost his mom for two years and he doesn’t have his dad through dad’s choice. But the judge’s last words to you, do you remember what they were?”
Amy replied,
“Yes, she said I don’t think that the attorney from Minor is going to change her position. And I think Ms. Duran that you will be back here in this courtroom again.”
Tammi repeated,
“’I think that you will be back here again.’ Did you consider that a little bit of a threat?”
Amy replied,
“Yes, I did.”
Tammi stated,
“People don’t understand that we really need an army, we need forensic auditors for the courts and what’s going on. I actually have an advocacy group that focuses on the court fraud that is going on. This needs to come out and be exposed. Your sworn affidavits for your audio tapes. You can find these templates in any of my groups on Facebook. There was a young lady who you gave the template to and she filed this template and the template was, I know that you have audio recordings, as you know you are paying top dollar for the transcripts.”
Tammi explained,
“People can’t afford it, so what happens, you’re not allowed to the right to justice because you don’t have your record. Amy is saying you don’t need your transcripts, the real record would be the audio. It is available for a fraction of the cost.”
Amy stated that she is trying to make these templates simple, so you can understand. Write up and notarize and send by certified mail to courts, attorneys, case workers.
3 1/2 Painful Years Later, Innocent Mother Got Her Son Back: “Do Not Give Up”
There is hope, three and a half years, almost four years and Amy got her son back.
Last words from Amy Duran,
“Do not give up. If you’re in a case, never miss a visit. Demand all of your records. You have a right to all of your records, your media records, there is a media form you can fill out in the court for your audio tapes and transcripts. The playing field is not fair and my coalition is about making the playing field fair. They are not providing positive services to the community, the children or the families. We need to be adamant about what is positive and what will work and push those things.”
Amy is now filing charges against the police department.
