Octuplet mom fears hospital may not release babies

[SoCalNative]

LOS ANGELES – Nadya Suleman apparently has bigger worries than taking care of her 14 children. Talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw says she may have to prove she can handle the load, or else have hospital officials withhold her newborn octuplets.

McGraw said the 33-year-old unemployed mother called him Tuesday, distraught that Kaiser Permanente officials told her they were concerned about the babies living at her home in suburban Los Angeles.

"What she is telling me is that unless and until she has a better living arrangement, that they are not likely to release the children to her," McGraw told the Los Angeles Times.

Suleman has taped two episodes of McGraw's "Dr. Phil" show. The first was scheduled to air Wednesday.

Suleman gave birth to the octuplets Jan. 26 in Kaiser's hospital in nearby Bellflower. She has six other children, lives in her mother's three-bedroom home in Whittier and relies on food stamps and disability income to provide for them. The home is under threat of foreclosure and could be sold at auction beginning May 5 because Suleman's mother is $23,225 behind in her mortgage payments, property records show.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090225/ap_en_tv/octuplets_dr_phil

[HereSince1628]

1. It will be interesting to see if this post, like a previous one

gets moved to the lounge.

[cboy4]

12. I know. WTF

[HereSince1628]

15. Not sent to the lounge yet. Maybe special rendition is a personal thing.

[get the red out]

2. When you become a "celebrity"

does that mean you then operate in some closed loop of a celeb-world? She calls Dr. Phil, not a lawyer, Dr. Phil.

I guess that's what it is like on planet "Don't you know who I am?"

[marshall]

3. Do hospitals routinely refuse to release children to mothers they deem to be unfit?

If so then half the pregnant girls I taught in high school shouldn't have been allowed to come home with their babies.

[Kittycat]

5. The state is involved with most NICU discharges

A social worker had to approve the discharge of my son from the NICU, because he had special health needs. They wanted to make sure we had proper training, set-up, services, doctors, etc before letting him go. It was standard operating procedure. And when a mother is being handed 8 newborns with who knows what levels of medical need - then yes, the social worker is going to make sure that the mom is prepared before discharging the babies.

[fed_up_mother]

6. Well, hospitals often bring in social workers

if someone thinks the children might be at risk at home. In the case of preemies and special needs kids, I think it's fairly standard that hospital personnel try to determine if the parent is equipped to deal with the needs of the kids. As a mom of a preemie who observed the comings and goings in a neonatal unit for months, this is definitely not unusual.

[Bobbieo]

4. Good!!!!! That will solve the problem for the octuplets. Now, what about the remaining

six children at home?

[skeewee08]

7. Amen to that!

[Pab Sungenis]

8. I've been advising people to donate one cent to her at her Paypal link.

Paypal'ing someone one cent costs them three cents in fees, for a net loss of two cents.

No one raised thousands of dollars for my mother when her house burned down (although some generous people here at DU kicked in a few dollars). No one is donating money to help me get out of foreclosure for helping her. There is no way in the world I will stand to see this woman become a millionaire off of her own irresponsibility and the whoring out of her fourteen kids that she should not have had in the first place.

[Maru Kitteh]

20. How incredibly ....... bitter.

Nobody helped my mom!

That woman had 8 babies! Let's burn the bitch! :banghead:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you believe that the woman is mentally ill. Many do. I do. If so, how many other people with non-violent, probably treatable, mental illnesses would you be so openly viscous and hateful towards? If the kids and their mom can stay together and do OK, and she can get the help she needs, do you still need to hate her?

[ejpoeta]

9. one of the networks was describing her house as a big mess or something

and that her six kids at home are living in deplorable conditions. i admit i didn't see her WHOLE house, but the pictures i did see don't look deplorable. they looked normal. has anyone seen pictures that look 'deplorable'?? i am just wondering, because as much as i think this lady has issues, and i worry about her ability to financially support the kids, i haven't seen anything to make me think her children are living in squalor. i have lived in deplorable conditions, and her house didn't look like that to me.

[Donnachaidh]

10. Dr. Phill the publicity whore, giving advice to the gilded vagina

Why doesn't Dr. Phil offer her a free house?

[timtom]

13. There! That one! I love that question.

Why not, indeed???

[Maat]

11. I don't mean to be technical ..

but a hospital cannot refuse to release infants to parents. They do not have the statutory authority. What they can do is have their hospitial social worker call in the Child Protective Services social worker to make an evaluation. If a sufficiently negative evaluation is made, the child in question may be detained (precluded from going home). Then, an initial hearing is held soon thereafter.

In our state (California), only a law enforcement officer, or a CPS worker in this case, can detain infants.

It is voluntary for a parent to talk to the hospital social worker, and, it is actually voluntary for the parent to talk to any social worker, or a law enforcement officer. Instead, one could contact one's lawyer, and go from there.

That is this retired social worker's understanding, anyway.

Moreover, if I detained an infant, and I've detained many, I had to have a strong case in order to do so. That having been said, it might not be difficult to make a strong case here if the reports about her home environment are true.

Maat, J.D.

[Warpy]

14. Most place I worked did release infants to their parents

and involving CPS was a judgment call on the part of hospital staff.

Yes, there were sometimes we rolled our eyes at each other, like when the biker parents insisted on putting the Harley Davidson patch on top of the receiving blanket for the official hospital photo of the newborn, but only when the dad showed up drunk or there was physical violence or Mom didn't pass a tox screen did we call CPS.

CPS is involved in this case because they need to make sure the basic infrastructure is in place for 8 infants, and that includes mundane things like car seats and onesies. They also need to know that the mom is equipped to take care of this many infants, physically and emotionally.

[Maat]

17. A hospital logically releases to the parents every time UNLESS ..

a CPS worker or an officer takes the child into protective custody.

Yes, the hospital makes a decision whether or not to call CPS or an officer.

Legally-speaking (and that's all I'm saying), the hospital has no independent statutory authority to take a child into protective custody. A CPS worker does have the statutory authority, as does the officer.

CPS does much more than place the child. CPS has to make a prima facie case for detention and file a petition to continue the custody; otherwise, if a petition is not filed, and a case is not made, the child is immediately released to the parent.

A very small part of my job was placing the child.

I would always do an investigation prior to taking the child into custody, no matter what the hospital thought. I had to make the decision to take the child in (or an officer did). Several times, I told the hospital that I would not be taking a child in.

After the child was detained temporarily by me (and, technically, even if an officer took the child in, I had to validate that decision, as he technically released to me immediately), I prepared a detention form and gave the hospital a copy. Then, again after placing the child, I went to office and began the paperwork for Dependency Court. I prepared the petition and had a supervisor sign it; then, it was filed with the Court and assigned a number. Then, I had statutory duties to inform the parents further of their rights (I always did that initially). Next, I conducted further investigation, culminating in a Jurisdictional/Dispositional Report, building a case for initiation detention and recommending further courses of action.

I was in court nearly every work day, making my cases, interfacing with parents and foster parents, and working with the attorneys.

As the right to parent has been adjudicated as a fundamental right, I had to make the strongest of cases for keeping the child out of parental custody. I had options, such as recommending family maintenance, in which the child was in the parents' physical custody, but supervised by the court.

CPS workers detain children in a variety of settings, going far beyond just the hospital setting.

I checked with my dependency-attorney friends, and this is still the law. I worked for them for awhile as a court interviewer.

That's all I'm saying.

[Warpy]

18. Thanks for the view from your side of the phone call

My view said that yes, we released newborns to their parents unless there was a compelling reason not to instead of getting CPS to sign off on every routine case.

[Maat]

21. Oh, of course, you wouldn't call us every time.

Just when you felt it warranted it.

Take care!

(P.S. I was informed through a friend that, of course, L.A. County's already involved up there.)

[undeterred]

16. Auction the children off on EBAY

and use the proceeds to reduce the California budget deficit. I know, that's crass. :hide:

[flvegan]

19. I think Dr Phil needs an update in Civil Procedure law.

I don't think the hospital can decide one way or the other without social services (or the like) steering them.

They are children, not pawn tickets you fucking idiot.