Justina Pelletier – A Sick Girl Trapped Between Two Hospitals And The State

I suspect many who will read this post already know who Justina Pelletier is. For those of you who do not, she is a 15-year-old girl from Connecticut who is trapped in Massachusetts. She was just ordered to a non-medical foster care facility by Judge Joseph Johnson on Monday. I’ll try to fill in the back story as briefly as possible, but the details we know are important.

Until just over a year ago, Justina Pelletier was living her life as a teenager in Connecticut. She loved to ice skate, if the pictures we have available are any clue. She was diagnosed with a rare medical condition called mitochondrial disease by Tufts Medical Center in Boston. In simple terms, this disease causes the human body to be unable to produce enough energy to fuel itself. In turn, this can cause all sorts of medical problems. She was dealing with her disease as best she could and was being supported by her family. There is every indication that she was enjoying her life and was active. That was before she came down with the flu.

Because her family knew the flu could be especially hard for mitochondrial patients, they contacted her primary mitochondrial doctor at Tufts Medical Center. That doctor suggested they take her to Boston Children’s Hospital, where their gastrointestinal specialist had just moved to. Dutifully following the doctor’s orders, they drove three hours to Boston. Once there, the situation blew up in their face. Boston Children’s Hospital disagreed with the original diagnosis of mitochondrial disease. In very short order, the hospital diagnosed Justina with a somatoform disorder and accused the Pelletier family of medical child abuse. They were ordered to be in court the next day. That was in February 2013. They have been fighting for custody of Justina ever since.

This case should not be that complicated. Even if the two hospitals disagreed on Justina’s diagnosis, could this have not been settled, without removing her from the custody of her parents? I’ll be the first to admit, there may be more to this story than we are being told. That being said, it seems to me what we are seeing is a battle of medical and legal egos, with a 15-year-old girl trapped in the middle of the fight.

The disorder diagnosed by Boston Children’s Hospital is a mental disorder that causes the patient to have imaginary pain. As a result of this diagnosis, medical treatment for mitochondrial disease was stopped and Justina was confined to a locked psychiatric ward, where she was told by workers she would never be going home. Take a look at the before and after picture below and tell me if you think the mental health treatment has been good for Justina.

I’ll be honest, I have been watching this story, but had no intention of writing about Justina’s plight. The simple reason is that there are too many unknowns and I like to be informed about the issues I write about. I changed my mind because of two text messages I received from our youngest daughter and the resulting conversation. She wanted to know if I had heard of Justina Pelletier and said I should write about what was happening to her. Randi is not easily outraged and is very established in reality. Some of her first words to me about Justina were “she has been kidnapped by the hospital and the public needs to know what is happening”. Thus, my research expanded and here we are.

The picture above tells part of the tale. In December 2012, Justina Pelletier was an active teenage girl with her entire life in front of her. In February 2014, she looks as if she is on the door of death. Two things have changed in that span of time. First of all, she is allowed no private visits with her family, and even then, only an hour at a time. No private family interaction at all. Second, her medical treatment has been completely changed. Instead of being treated for mitochondrial disease, she is being treated for a mental health disorder. It is clear to see, her health has not improved as a result of the change in treatment. Because I am a simple man with at least a little common sense, it seems to me Justina should be continuing her original treatment. It was, after all, being effective. Does that not count for something in the medical and legal worlds?

I say again, there may be things about this story that we do not know. It is interesting that a gag order has been issued about the case. It is also worth noting that Lou Pelletier has defied that order by talking about his daughter and their case on The Blaze and with Megyn Kelly of Fox News. He seems to believe he has a story to tell that needs to get out to the press. Beset on all sides by people who seem to be determined to take his daughter away from her family forever, he is fighting with everything he has to preserve his family. Faced with the same situation, I would be doing the same thing.

Again looking at the simplicity of things, I would ask these questions. Since when does any state have the authority to remove a child from her home and place them in a locked psychiatric ward, all because two hospitals disagreed on her medical diagnosis? Are we at such a place in America that a child and her family’s well-being is placed second to the egos of doctors, hospital administrators, and state social workers? As parents, are we not allowed to question the diagnosis of the doctors who are treating our children? Do we face accusations of child abuse, just because we ask for a second opinion?

As far as I am concerned, if the answer to any of these questions is a yes, then we are certainly living in a much different America than I grew up in. Justina Pelletier’s health is the issue, not the egos of the doctors who can not agree on what her problem is. They can’t even agree if it is a real medical condition or just in her head. To my way of thinking, it is shameful that a teenage girl could get so trapped between the hospitals and the state, she may very well die as a result. Where’s the rightness in that?

Conservative Hideout is also covering this story and wonders if the state is out of control. I tend to wonder that myself.