Update on CPS taking a baby for supposed "severe neglect."

[Liz CA]

http://www.news10.net/news/article/242914/2/Couple-still-unclear-why-CPS-took-their-baby-

 

It seems now that CPS is backing off a little and letting the parents feed him even though they are not allowed to take him home. In the news report, it was mentioned that the Kaiser physician is standing by his evaluation that the child is taken care of well and not in any danger.

 

A hearing is scheduled for Monday.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Good for that Kaiser doctor.

[Ravin]

Wow. Good for the Kaiser doctor. In Arizona they aren't ALLOWED to deny a parent access to medical records (not that they won't sometimes try), even when the child is not in the parent's custody.

 

Given that had they behaved with the slightest bit of decorum when they came to the parents' house the could have seen documentation that the baby had received continued medical care, someone really messed up at CPS if the reason for the call to take the baby was "lack of proof" of other medical care, communication breakdowns with the police who visited the KP hospital notwithstanding.

 

The baby was taken on Wednesday, so if California law is similar to Arizona's, Monday is within the required 5-day window. It's still an awfully long five days for such a small baby (and for parents!). I'm glad they have an attorney.

[AngieW in Texas]

I'm glad that they have gotten visits with their baby at least. I still can't believe that a quicker hearing isn't required. I'd completely understand if this took place on a Friday and the hearing wasn't until Monday. But with this all going down on a Wednesday, they should have had the hearing at least by Friday.

 

Five days is too long of a window.

[staceyobu]

So, you can't get a second opinion without risking your child being taken away, huh? Sick.

[SKL]

Aside from this being all kinds of wrong, don't they realize the amount of stress they are putting this baby through? How is that supposed to be good for his heart? Stupid people.

[Dahliarw]

The law in sacramento is a hearing within 2 business days. Baby was taken Wednesday night, so they are really pushing it with the 2 business day thing (technically it seems that since it wasn't 48 hours before close Friday that they can have the hearing monday). I do get the feeling the delay by CPS is to try to gather more evidence against the couple. And the way they aren't giving the lawyer what he is supposed to have access to, well, that's just another red flag.

 

If I were the parents and I was denied my child Monday, I would file to have the child moved to UC Davis or another PICU. I would not want my child to stay at Sutter. There is a VERY huge conflict of interest there.

[Liz CA]

I posted another video in the other thread.

Sutter will have to live this incident down. If I was a parent in SAC, I'd be thinking twice taking my kid there.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

My aunt was a social worker with CPS for a long time and she left the whole state of CA to move to OR because she was so unhappy with the policies and attitudes in CA.

[Caraway]

I really feel like there is more to this story than we are hearing. While I understand that CPS can be over zealous, that is not their reputation in this area. Additionally the experiences that I have had with the Sutter Memorial NICU and PICU have been outstanding. I understand that experiences will very, but I have found Sutter Memorial to be very professional, and very compassionate, even when they did not agree with me.

[SKL]

I can't imagine how CPS or the police could find anything wrong with taking a baby from one reputable hospital to another. It's not like Kaiser is some sort of faith healing compound. :/

[justamouse]

The whole case sickens me. That CPS can so arbitrarily do this to parents. I hope the parents can sue.

[justasque]

I can't imagine how CPS or the police could find anything wrong with taking a baby from one reputable hospital to another. It's not like Kaiser is some sort of faith healing compound. :/

 

I agree. But...

 

We don't know if getting the second opinion has anything to do with CPS's concerns or not.

We don't know if the heart condition has anything to do with it.

 

We do know that the family didn't follow the appropriate procedure to sign their baby out of the hospital against medical advice (AMA), which in itself does tend to raise concerns in the minds of medical personnel Of course, that alone is not grounds for CPS taking the baby, though it may be a reason the docs felt that they were obligated by law to report it.

[SKL]

 

We do know that the family didn't follow the appropriate procedure to sign their baby out of the hospital against medical advice (AMA), which in itself does tend to raise concerns in the minds of medical personnel Of course, that alone is not grounds for CPS taking the baby, though it may be a reason the docs felt that they were obligated by law to report it.

If it's my kid, I take her where I want within this free country. :/ I wonder if we will ever find out what the doctors were trying to force these parents to do that they felt uncomfortable about. Like I said, they took the kid to another mainstream hospital, not underground or to cult practitioner. Unless the baby had evidence of physical abuse, I am going to be very hard to convince on this one. ... If there is a law that the docs have to report parents failing to follow xyz procedure, then fine, but it does not follow that CPS disrupts the parent-child bond.

[bettyandbob]

The more I think about it the more I think the doctor was angry that the parents sought a second opinion.

 

2 years ago my mother had a heart attack was rushed to a hospital where her HMO team did not have privileges. She needed heart surgery, but she was having some intestinal thing at the same time and the gastro doctor said she needed different surgery for that. The ins co sent over a general practice MD to consult. The doctors were fighting in front of my mother over who needed to do surgery first both insisting she would die if she didn't have his mandated surgery immediately. My mother was frightened and didn't know who to go with first. The ins co consulting doctor said she could stay and get treatment at that hospital or they would pay to transfer her to a facility where all her usual doctors had privileges and would consult one another. I immediately told mom to transfer because she was so scared and uncomfortable. It was truly awful listening to two doctors insist each one's surgery was more important and that she was going to die. Upon transfer my mother had two surgeries. Care for both was completely coordinated. That was never going to happen at the first facility with doctors from different practice groups openly fighting over her treatment.

 

In the interviews the mother said while her son was being treated for flu the doctor was given antibiotics which she knew from previous consults with the cardiac doctor her son should not have. She described other concerns while in the hospital for flu. So, when the cardiac doctor insisted on surgery she had real questions about the quality of care he was getting at that facility. Based on her statements it was very reasonable to want a second opinion before something as serious as heart surgery.

 

If doctors wanted to push my mother (an adult) into immediate surgery, I'm sure they have no qualms about pushing parents of a pediatric patient. Additionally, they do not like being questioned in any way so I am sure the idea of a patient seeking a second opinion could really make some doctors angry.

 

I do not fault CPS as much as the doctor, because once a doctor makes a report I'm sure there's a protocol that just goes with CPS. I do think CPS pushed the situation so that a hearing couldn't happen before the weekend.

[msjones]

I'm glad that they have gotten visits with their baby at least. I still can't believe that a quicker hearing isn't required. I'd completely understand if this took place on a Friday and the hearing wasn't until Monday. But with this all going down on a Wednesday, they should have had the hearing at least by Friday.

 

Five days is too long of a window.

 

 

If you're arrested for a crime there's only a 48 hour window until you must be charged.

 

But these parents had to wait 5 days for a hearing? With a baby involved?

[SKL]

I wonder who is going to pay for the hospital bills while this baby was supposed to be home with his parents?

[ChristusG]

I sure hope that there's more to the story and this poor baby wasn't taken away from his parents just due to transferring to another hospital. If I were the parents, I'd be going crazy right now! I wouldn't be able to sleep at all. If this is all legit, I feel really badly for all of them. Poor baby must be terrified without his mommy. I'd be livid. And at that age, my babies were still breastfeeding like every two hours.....livid is putting it lightly.

[justasque]

I wonder who is going to pay for the hospital bills while this baby was supposed to be home with his parents?

 

 

I've wondered this too. I know sometimes a hospital will, for example, do tests on a kid who is suspected of being abused (to find, for example, having broken bones that weren't treated), and I wonder who pays for this, especially if it ends up not being abuse. I don't know how consent works in these situations either.

 

Example: Parent brings baby in for flu. Doc decides to x-ray baby because of cough. Doc finds broken ribs not explained by flu or child's history as given by parents. Doc reports to CPS. Baby stays in hospital while CPS investigates. Who pays for the hospital stay if parents are found not to have abused the child? I don't know.

[Renee in NC]

 

I've wondered this too. I know sometimes a hospital will, for example, do tests on a kid who is suspected of being abused (to find, for example, having broken bones that weren't treated), and I wonder who pays for this, especially if it ends up not being abuse. I don't know how consent works in these situations either.

 

Example: Parent brings baby in for flu. Doc decides to x-ray baby because of cough. Doc finds broken ribs not explained by flu or child's history as given by parents. Doc reports to CPS. Baby stays in hospital while CPS investigates. Who pays for the hospital stay if parents are found not to have abused the child? I don't know.

 

The baby most likely wouldn't stay in the hospital during the investigation, but be taken from the hospital and put in foster care.

[bettyandbob]

I wonder who is going to pay for the hospital bills while this baby was supposed to be home with his parents?

 

The baby won't be in the hospital the whole time. However, I wouldn't be surprised to learn medical expenses, tests necessary or not ordered during the investigation are the responsibility of the parents. Just like the patient must pay for his own involuntary hospitalization.

[Anne in CA]

We have a close friend whose dd had Down's Syndrome. During the last year of her life a doctor who was doing a study on tracheotomies ordered her father to have one done for her even though her primary care physician did not think it was a good idea. The doctor waited until the primary care physician was on vacation and then told our friend that he would call CSD and have the girl taken away from him, to do the trach if he did not agree. So, do I think the doctor in this case is innocent? I think he wanted to do the surgery for whatever reason and though the parents would be pushovers.

[TravelingChris]

I think it is outrageous that CA gives five days to CPS but two days if you are in jail. That baby needs to be back with its parents, if the story is like it seems to be.

[Jean in Newcastle]

It's Monday. Any update yet?

[alef]

I'm hoping for updates as well. This case is making me feel sick inside...:(

[Harriet Vane]

:lurk5:

[celticmom]

I am also hoping for an update.

[Liz CA]

The more I think about it the more I think the doctor was angry that the parents sought a second opinion.

 

 

I do not fault CPS as much as the doctor, because once a doctor makes a report I'm sure there's a protocol that just goes with CPS. I do think CPS pushed the situation so that a hearing couldn't happen before the weekend.

 

 

This is exactly what I am thinking. I still fault the whole system under which CPS works. I do not doubt they have individuals working for them who would love to serve society better than they are allowed with the current policies.

Maybe it will take incidents like this for CPS to re-evaluate if they are doing more harm than good in situations like this.

[Liz CA]

It's Monday. Any update yet?

 

 

 

I checked around 10a.m. this morning but could not find anything new yet.

[AngieW in Texas]

I have been searching, but haven't found anything more recent than the visits they got to make with their baby over the weekend. Nothing has been posted today that I have found.

[Ravin]

http://www.news10.net/news/article/243243/2/Parents-global-audience-await-decision-in-Sacramento-custody-case-

 

This is the most recent thing I found. Supposedly CPS has said that their decision might take more time because of the media attention. Hopefully they get a judge who knows better than to weigh the media involvement in any way. I don't know CA law, but in general it's the court that has the real decision making power, even if they follow and approve CPS decisions most of the time.

[Jean in Newcastle]

http://www.news10.net/news/article/243243/2/Parents-global-audience-await-decision-in-Sacramento-custody-case-

 

I found this, dated this morning (no verdict yet) but was a bit angered by the remark at the end where CPS is quoted as saying that they might take longer to make a decision due to media attention. Punishment for going to the press?

[I.Dup.]

http://www.news10.ne...o-custody-case-

 

I found this, dated this morning (no verdict yet) but was a bit angered by the remark at the end where CPS is quoted as saying that they might take longer to make a decision due to media attention. Punishment for going to the press?

 

What????

 

They really know how to throw their power around don't they. Disgusting. Meanwhile, a 5 month old baby continues to be away from his parents...........

[AmyontheFarm]

Ok, granted I'm a Canadian, maybe I have the wrong Sacramento, geography was never my strong point. But why when I searched The Sacramento Bee did absolutely nothing come up about this family?

 

http://www.sacbee.com/search_results?q=Alex+and+Anna+Nikolayev&aff=1100

[amsunshine]

This case sounds so awful -- it's hard to believe something crazy like this can happen. I just wonder, though, if there is something else going on behind the scenes that hasn't been publicized yet.

[Ravin]

Ok, granted I'm a Canadian, maybe I have the wrong Sacramento, geography was never my strong point. But why when I searched The Sacramento Bee did absolutely nothing come up about this family?

 

http://www.sacbee.co...olayev&aff=1100

 

If I had to guess, I'd say it was a "TV news" story, not one the print media (and hence the paper's website) has seen fit to report on.

 

AFAIK there's only one Sacramento, CA.

[Jennifer3141]

Every time I see one of these posts, I think back to an old parenting board I used to frequent and the story of the MI mom who was sooooooo hunted by CPS just for homebirthing, etc. that they took her kids from her and one later died in foster care.

 

A ton of people on the board sent her money.

 

And then a couple years later, when all the cases were done and settled, they published photos of the trailer these kids lived in. Seriously chickens in CAFO farms fared better than these kids. To this day, I have never seen or heard of anything as disgusting as that home. Human feces several inches deep because the family did that diaper free thing (I loved cloth too much so I forget what it's called but it did work for a friend of mine. However, the kid didn't %$#!% the FLOOR or if she did, the Mom cleaned it up). There were dead rats with maggots in the pics. And roaches were EVERYWHERE. The babies had rat bites and maggots in their skin. It was indescribable.

 

I saw the pics and could not help but think that the foster kid at least died quickly. :(

 

I have no doubt that there are jerks in CPS. There are jerks all over the planet. We have a jerk infestation. But since CPS cannot respond, there is a part of me that wonders if there is more to the story. If there isn't, I hope the family goes ape all over them as soon as that baby is back safely in their arms.

[Danestress]

 

 

What????

 

They really know how to throw their power around don't they. Disgusting. Meanwhile, a 5 month old baby continues to be away from his parents...........

 

Cases with a lot of media attention require additional security measures that may be difficult to arrange on a Monday morning. CPS dockets include a number of families whose cases are being reviewed. Typically all the parties and their attorneys are in a court room and the cases are called one at a time. My guess is that they will want to protect the privacy of all those families who are on the Monday morning docket by arranging for a seperate closed court room for this case.

 

Nothing more sinister than that, most likely.

 

[AmyontheFarm]

 

If I had to guess, I'd say it was a "TV news" story, not one the print media (and hence the paper's website) has seen fit to report on.

 

AFAIK there's only one Sacramento, CA.

 

 

OH ok, our newspaper and tv news are the same thing, I just expected that to be the same everywhere. I've lived here all my life, so I thought everyone's paper/tv websites were run the same way. So, basically there won't be an update then until after 6pm news.

[I.Dup.]

My guess is that they will want to protect the privacy of all those families who are on the Monday morning docket by arranging for a seperate closed court room for this case.

 

 

And who knows when they will get around to that. If my baby was taken away from me for even one hour that would be one hour too long.

 

Jennifer, you may be right that there is more going on. I hope so for the sake of CPS because I'm just about to lose ALL faith in CPS. They definitely should exist for cases like you mentioned (horrible btw), unfortunately it seems they make way too many mistakes.

[tabinfl]

Just to keep things in perspective, even though a week away from your baby seems unimagineable when you're in the middle of it, in the end it will do no lasting harm to anyone involved, certainly not the child.

 

Speaking as a homeschooling parent of three active young children (who among them have had three broken bones in the past 3 years), I do have a little tiny pocket of fear in the back of my brain... what if someone sees something suspicious in the results of my twins' roughhousing with each other? Speaking as a former foster parent, I certainly know that CPS caseworkers are not perfect. They are not issued a magical lie detector or crystal ball when they accept the job. If there _is_ abuse or neglect going on, and the child stays in the parents' care, CPS could come back a week later to find the baby severely injured or worse (or the whole family gone).

 

CPS caseworkers really do, as others have noted, have a lousy job. While there may be a few bad apples out there, most are in the job because they truly care for and want to protect the most vulnerable children -- that's about the only reason someone would voluntarily take on a job where they're paid relatively little, are consistently overworked, and have to see and hear details of horrific child abuse on a daily basis. They are required to operate within a strict set of laws and regulations, and every decision they make is subject to "Monday morning quaterbacking" by the press and the public. Cases like this hit the news, the pendulum swings the other way, the agencies are more hesitant to make the removal call, and we end up with dead, missing, or permanently damaged children.

 

Give them a break, folks. Wait for the whole story to come out, if it ever does (CPS is also bound by privacy rules, while the child's family is not, so their "side" may never be told in public), before passing judgement. Better yet, unless evidence of gross ineptitude is found, don't pass judgement at all.

[SKL]

Stuff like this makes me eager for my kids to grow up - to an age where nobody could possibly think they need "protection." My house isn't a pigsty (IMO) but it's not perfect either, and it's nobody's business. I can't believe the things that get kids taken away at times. Being sent down the street to drop a letter in the mailbox, for instance. Too crazy.

[SKL]

I don't agree that taking a child away from its parents, even for a week, isn't harmful. And, we don't know that it will only be a week, or that there won't be multiple further disruptions. They seem to be in no hurry to resolve this despite the Kaiser doctor saying the baby was not in apparent danger. I understand the desire to give CPS the benefit of the doubt, but I have no tolerance for "guilty until proven innocent."

[tabinfl]

Note: I didn't say that being separated wasn't harmful. Of course it is, traumatic for the parents and for the child. In the long term, though, it's a mere bump in the road especially when the child involved is very young and will likely have no independent memory of the event.

 

The risk of _permanent_ damage from removing the child for a short time (even a week or two) vs. the risk of leaving a child in the care of parents when there is some credible evidence of abuse or neglect... that's where the CPS caseworker has to make a judgement call, and where I wouldn't want to have any part in pressuring those agencies into leaving children in potentially harmful situations.

[SKL]

As an adoptive parent, I worry about kids who are jerked around like that. But besides that, what about the effect of the CPS cloud that will hang over these parents' heads forever? Do you think they will feel free to do what feels right as parents when it comes to discipline, allowing freedoms/independence, developing responsibility, and even letting their child make basic choices for himself? Will they become obsessed with housework at the expense of a comfortable relationship with their child? I think it is a big deal.

[TravelingChris]

I think it is a very big deal. I don't think that a week is nothing to a small child. This child will be having heart surgery and may have already been in the hospital NICU when born because of that. We know that children who are taken away from parents at that age are at risk of developing RAD> We don't know how long the disruption has to be but there are cases where the disruption was only due to hospitalization, let alone being grabbed from the parents. I am totally against this. The first video showed the parents' home, It was a normal home, not some filth horror place. We have the doctor at Kaiser saying the kid was fine and the parents were taking good care of him.

[Nart]

I just read baby Sammy is going to be transported to Stanford Medical Hospital. Looks like the patents will get to see him thre as long as they follow medical advice from the doctors there and do not take him without him being officially discharged.

 

http://www.news10.net/news/article/243286/2/Judge-orders-transport-of-Baby-Sammy-to-Stanford-Medical-Center

[Dahliarw]

Yes, thet get 24/7 access to him, but are still under CPS supervision and have to follow the medical advice of the new doctor. They are taking him to the best hospital and when that doctor releases him he will go home with the parents.

[Ravin]

So, the judge put the child in neutral territory, let CPS save face/cover their backsides, gave the parents a stern talking to about following Dr's orders and using proper procedures for leaving the hospital, but otherwise returned the child to the parents.

 

They don't actually say if a dependency was filed or found or is being considered.

[Laurie4b]

 

I do not fault CPS as much as the doctor, because once a doctor makes a report I'm sure there's a protocol that just goes with CPS. I do think CPS pushed the situation so that a hearing couldn't happen before the weekend.

 

In our state (and I would be surprised if this wasn't also the case in CA), CPS is supposed to investigate based on a report from anyone. Yes, a doctor's report would cause a more serious look, but there is no automatic protocol that a doctor's report requires the child be taken from his parents. If the facts of the story are actually what has been reported, there was no reason for CPS to take the child. He was not being medically neglected, in fact, it was the opposite. The parents took him out of a situation in which a medical error had been made and sought a second opinion. We may not have all the facts, but if these facts turn out to be correct, CPS erred big time.