Saturday, August 2, 2014

Mother's desperate fights for custody of her teenage son after he was taken by the state because he has been in and out of the hospital for a badly healed broken leg

Fighting for her son: Michelle Rider says her sickly son, Isaiah, was wrongly taken away from her amid allegations of medical child abuse 

        A Missouri mom who claims her son was 'kidnapped' by social workers in a hospital on the grounds of medical child abuse is desperately fighting to regain custody.
Michelle Rider says her son Isaiah - now 16 - has had health issues since he was child, beginning with breaking his leg at age six and the bones never fully recovering.
         At 15 his leg was partially amputated to fit a prosthetic, however there were complications, with the teen suffering tremors and intense pain after the surgery.
After being transferred to numerous children's hospitals around the country, an MRI determined Isaiah had tumors on his leg and he was diagnosed with neurofibromitoisis
saiah under surgery at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago on March 31, but the tremors and pain persisted.
Doctors suggested Isaiah manage without drugs.
'They couldn't help him, and I, as his parent, requested, ‘Please, get him help somewhere,' Rider told The Blaze.
'I wanted him transferred,' Rider said
Rider said she called an ethics meeting with her son’s doctors and social workers, asking that he be transferred to another hospital.
Then on April 15, upon arriving at the hospital, Rider was met in the lobby by a social worker, who took her to a room with two doctors and another social worker, none of whom Rider had met before.
The mom was then told Isaiah had been taken into emergency custody due to evidence of medical abuse.
Doctors believed that Isaiah was coping better and improving when his mother was not around and that 'only pharmacological means can be used to treat pain', according to The Chicago Tribune.
'All attempts to … have [the] mother voluntarily partner with us in [the boy's] care have been futile and met with resistance,' the doctor's reported.
'In order to best develop a therapeutic medical plan for [the boy], we need to remove the mother from his care at the moment.'
 Poorly: Isaiah Rider has been in and out of hospital since the age of six, stemming from a broken leg that never properly healed
Stunned: Both mother and son said they did not understand what was happening when Isaiah was put into a foster home in Illinois
Isaiah was placed with a foster family in Illinois and Rider said she was left in complete shock.
'They literally did a hospital kidnapping,' she said.
Isaiah has said he feels the same way as his mother and disagrees with what the doctors are saying.
'They kept telling me that .... my anxiety is my mom causing me pain.
'There were times [though] where I'd be in pain for hours at a time and they wouldn't give me anything.
'I needed, like, a muscle relaxer and they wouldn't give me anything for it. Told me to wait it through.
'That's immoral to me, when patient in pain needs medicine, give him some pain medicine.
'I was hurting so much at one point my nose bled.
'If I was a doctor, I'd be ashamed if I heard of other doctors doing stuff like this. They've been lying in the court.'
Patient: Isaiah Rider and his mom Michelle have traveled to hospitals all over the country trying to find him the proper care
At the next custody hearing on August 11, Rider and her attorney, Randy Kretchmar, plan to challenge the case using an old federal law, which they believe has been violated.
The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in 1978 'protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families'.
The law puts a greater emphasis on the proof to take temporary custody of Indian children.
Kretchmar believes in this case there is no medical evidence that Rider had personally - physically or otherwise - wronged her son in any way.
He also said that Isaiah fits the legal definition of an Indian child.
Kretchmar said he understands that people will think that there is more to this story, but maintains there isn't.
'The system is something that needs to be radically confronted and resisted and changed and abolished,' he told The Blaze
'It’s very, very similarly minded people, a class of people who believe that they understand what’s better for other people’s children.
'They wouldn’t come out and say that, but that’s what they do.
'They make their living from acting that way.'
Missouri state Rep. Ken Wilson told TheBlaze he was stunned when he heard of Isaiah’s situation
'These parents are hurting. What happened to them just should not happen to anyone else,'  Wilson said.
'Who can possibly believe that child is better off in a foster home in Chicago than in the family home?
'That's another one of those bizarre things that you just have to think, ‘'really?''.'
Source---dailymail

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