Local Doctors Blame CPS For Child's Death WOAI-TV
Updated: 8:49 a.m. ET May 01, 2004May 01, 2004 - Two local physicians say one child has died and another may soon because Child Protective Services didn't follow up on cases involving "medically fragile" children.
He was the little boy whom everyone loved, but he was born with two strikes against him. He had a serious intestinal liver problem and a mother the State of Texas felt was unfit.
His doctor, Eduardo Ibarguen, describes the boy, "He was a fighter. He didn't want to die...This is a child who wanted to live."
We'll call this little boy "Angel" to protect his identity. He spent much of his time in the hospital.
He quickly won over those who took care of him. They say he had a good chance for a healthy life, but that wasn't enough.
Tanji Patton sat down with two of "Angel's" doctors and asked who they blamed for the child's death.
Dr. Lee Kirchner, Chief of Medicine at a local hospital, says, "CPS for putting him back in that environment." Dr. Kirchner tells News 4 he'd tried to warn Child Protective Services "multiple times" that he felt the agency wasn't doing enough to protect the child.
"What would they tell you?" Patton asks Kirchner. "[CPS] needs to preserve the family," Kirchner replies. "I said 'I need to preserve my patient's life.'"
Dr. Kirchner had helped arrange for the boy to get a liver transplant when he was 3 years old at one of the leading child transplant centers in the country in Omaha, Nebraska. The surgery was a success, and Angel came home to San Antonio. That's when Angel's doctors say he kept showing up in the ER with infections.
Patton asks Dr. Ibarguen, "No one from CPS called you to inquire why this child was having recurrent infections?" He strongly replied, "No."
Dr. Eduardo Ibarguen says CPS never called to inquire why this child was having reoccurring infections. He adds one of those infections turned very serious, and when the doctor called CPS, he says as was often the case, Angel's caseworker was nowhere to be found.
Angel was transferred back to the hospital in Omaha, and then put in the care of a foster family there to recover. His doctors say he did great, but CPS back in San Antonio wanted Angel to come home to live with relatives.
Dr. Kirchner tells News 4, "I called. The transplant program wrote letters. It was of little or no avail." Angel's doctors say the move back to San Antonio, back to family, cost Angel his life.
"He went up there had five surgeries in a week could have died in any of them, survived all of them. Then went into foster care," Dr. Kirchner remembers, "was in foster care 18 months, came back here and was dead not even six, eight months afterward."
So Tanji Patton sat down with CPS's Program Administrator in Bexar County, Sherry Gomez. Patton asks, "Shouldn't a red flag have gone up when a child has been in a foster family and thrived and done well and comes back and gets placed with a family member and the infections keep coming back over and over again?
Gomez replies, "You know I understand what you're saying, but I also want to go back to the fact that when you have a child that's catastrophically ill, that's had multiple medical problems. Sometimes a parent that's caring for a child or another legal caregiver can give this child the best of care and there's an unfortunate tragedy to it."
According to both his doctors, this was strictly negligent care that was causing these recurrent infections, infections that were not occurring when he was in foster care. Gomez's response is, "to really reinforce that the professional make a phone call to our hotline."
That's something Dr. Kirchner said he did a number of times. The last time he did so was when Angel was seriously ill. He says he was kept holding for more than an hour. Gomez says she's not aware that why it would take him that long to talk to someone at CPS.
Now because of the tug of war between doctors and CPS, at-risk kids who need these life saving transplants are caught in the middle.
One of those children is 4-year old Alexis Marie. Doctors say she won't live without a lung transplant, but they say she can't get one and once again blame CPS. Alexis' mother, Frances Silva, says CPS put Alexis in foster care because of her mom's drug use and suspected neglect.
Silva tells News 4, "[CPS] felt like I was neglecting my daughter." So, she went to drug treatment, took parenting classes and did everything CPS asked so she could get her child back. "I made a mistake," Silva explained. "I made bad choices, but I learned from my mistakes."
But doctors say CPS fumbled the case when they put Alexis back with mom because the transplant team won't perform the operation unless she's in a stable home.
Dr. Kirchner says, "That kind of gut wrenching talking to a mother about 'gee would you consider giving your child up to a medically fragile foster care home so we can get her transplanted so she can live.' The mother would consider that, but CPS says 'no, we need to preserve the family.'"
CPS's Gomez says this is the first they've heard of it. "So the mother telling us that was a shock. In fact, we put a call into that specific doctor to find out if in fact there's any accuracy to that because that's news to us."
But the Trouble Shooters want to know if that should be news to CPS. Gomez explains, "in all of our other conversations, with the doctor, that was never brought to our attention. That was never mentioned as an issue because absolutely we would've taken that seriously."
But Alexis' mother says if her case worker had ever talked to her doctor, CPS might have known what was going on. Silva tells us, "My case worker never met with [the doctor] until the case was closed three months after."
In the meantime, little Alexis fights for every breath, and her mom holds out hope that some day Alexis will get the lung transplant she so desperately needs
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4866110/
Updated: 8:49 a.m. ET May 01, 2004May 01, 2004 - Two local physicians say one child has died and another may soon because Child Protective Services didn't follow up on cases involving "medically fragile" children.
He was the little boy whom everyone loved, but he was born with two strikes against him. He had a serious intestinal liver problem and a mother the State of Texas felt was unfit.
His doctor, Eduardo Ibarguen, describes the boy, "He was a fighter. He didn't want to die...This is a child who wanted to live."
We'll call this little boy "Angel" to protect his identity. He spent much of his time in the hospital.
He quickly won over those who took care of him. They say he had a good chance for a healthy life, but that wasn't enough.
Tanji Patton sat down with two of "Angel's" doctors and asked who they blamed for the child's death.
Dr. Lee Kirchner, Chief of Medicine at a local hospital, says, "CPS for putting him back in that environment." Dr. Kirchner tells News 4 he'd tried to warn Child Protective Services "multiple times" that he felt the agency wasn't doing enough to protect the child.
"What would they tell you?" Patton asks Kirchner. "[CPS] needs to preserve the family," Kirchner replies. "I said 'I need to preserve my patient's life.'"
Dr. Kirchner had helped arrange for the boy to get a liver transplant when he was 3 years old at one of the leading child transplant centers in the country in Omaha, Nebraska. The surgery was a success, and Angel came home to San Antonio. That's when Angel's doctors say he kept showing up in the ER with infections.
Patton asks Dr. Ibarguen, "No one from CPS called you to inquire why this child was having recurrent infections?" He strongly replied, "No."
Dr. Eduardo Ibarguen says CPS never called to inquire why this child was having reoccurring infections. He adds one of those infections turned very serious, and when the doctor called CPS, he says as was often the case, Angel's caseworker was nowhere to be found.
Angel was transferred back to the hospital in Omaha, and then put in the care of a foster family there to recover. His doctors say he did great, but CPS back in San Antonio wanted Angel to come home to live with relatives.
Dr. Kirchner tells News 4, "I called. The transplant program wrote letters. It was of little or no avail." Angel's doctors say the move back to San Antonio, back to family, cost Angel his life.
"He went up there had five surgeries in a week could have died in any of them, survived all of them. Then went into foster care," Dr. Kirchner remembers, "was in foster care 18 months, came back here and was dead not even six, eight months afterward."
So Tanji Patton sat down with CPS's Program Administrator in Bexar County, Sherry Gomez. Patton asks, "Shouldn't a red flag have gone up when a child has been in a foster family and thrived and done well and comes back and gets placed with a family member and the infections keep coming back over and over again?
Gomez replies, "You know I understand what you're saying, but I also want to go back to the fact that when you have a child that's catastrophically ill, that's had multiple medical problems. Sometimes a parent that's caring for a child or another legal caregiver can give this child the best of care and there's an unfortunate tragedy to it."
According to both his doctors, this was strictly negligent care that was causing these recurrent infections, infections that were not occurring when he was in foster care. Gomez's response is, "to really reinforce that the professional make a phone call to our hotline."
That's something Dr. Kirchner said he did a number of times. The last time he did so was when Angel was seriously ill. He says he was kept holding for more than an hour. Gomez says she's not aware that why it would take him that long to talk to someone at CPS.
Now because of the tug of war between doctors and CPS, at-risk kids who need these life saving transplants are caught in the middle.
One of those children is 4-year old Alexis Marie. Doctors say she won't live without a lung transplant, but they say she can't get one and once again blame CPS. Alexis' mother, Frances Silva, says CPS put Alexis in foster care because of her mom's drug use and suspected neglect.
Silva tells News 4, "[CPS] felt like I was neglecting my daughter." So, she went to drug treatment, took parenting classes and did everything CPS asked so she could get her child back. "I made a mistake," Silva explained. "I made bad choices, but I learned from my mistakes."
But doctors say CPS fumbled the case when they put Alexis back with mom because the transplant team won't perform the operation unless she's in a stable home.
Dr. Kirchner says, "That kind of gut wrenching talking to a mother about 'gee would you consider giving your child up to a medically fragile foster care home so we can get her transplanted so she can live.' The mother would consider that, but CPS says 'no, we need to preserve the family.'"
CPS's Gomez says this is the first they've heard of it. "So the mother telling us that was a shock. In fact, we put a call into that specific doctor to find out if in fact there's any accuracy to that because that's news to us."
But the Trouble Shooters want to know if that should be news to CPS. Gomez explains, "in all of our other conversations, with the doctor, that was never brought to our attention. That was never mentioned as an issue because absolutely we would've taken that seriously."
But Alexis' mother says if her case worker had ever talked to her doctor, CPS might have known what was going on. Silva tells us, "My case worker never met with [the doctor] until the case was closed three months after."
In the meantime, little Alexis fights for every breath, and her mom holds out hope that some day Alexis will get the lung transplant she so desperately needs
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4866110/
Sabrina...Nothing seem to be fair lately!...