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A Florida jury on Thursday awarded greater than $200 million in damages to the household of Maya Kowalski, who alleged in a 2018 civil swimsuit that the actions of workers at Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital (JHAC) in St. Petersburg finally drove Maya’s mom, Beata Kowalski, to suicide in 2017.
The jury discovered that JHAC had falsely imprisoned Maya, fraudulently billed her household and precipitated them extreme emotional misery. The jury additionally decided that social employee Catherine Bedy had battered Maya, and Dr. Sally Smith had medically uncared for Maya, who was ten years previous when she was admitted to JHAC for a uncommon medical situation.
Maya cried and grasped a rosary in her hand because the jury’s determination was learn aloud in court docket.
In a while Thursday, the jury awarded a complete $50 million in punitive damages to the Kowalski household.
‘TAKE CARE OF MAYA’ TRIAL: HOSPITAL DEFENDS MEDICAL ABUSE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST MOTHER WHO DIED BY SUICIDE
Workers at JHAC suspected that Beata Kowalski was struggling Munchausen syndrome by proxy after she pushed for unapproved ketamine therapy for her daughter’s situation. (WTVT)
Howard Hunter, an lawyer from Hill Ward Henderson who represented JHAC on this case, thanked the jury for his or her “time and a spotlight” in a press release to Fox Information Digital. He added that JHAC plans to attraction the choice “based mostly on clear and prejudicial errors all through the trial and deliberate conduct by plaintiff’s counsel that misled the jury.”
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“The proof clearly confirmed that [JHAC] adopted Florida’s necessary reporting legislation in reporting suspected baby abuse and, when these suspicions had been confirmed by the district court docket, totally complied with Division of Kids and Households (DCF) and court docket orders,” Hunter stated. “We’re decided to defend the vitally essential obligation of necessary reporters to report suspected baby abuse and shield the smallest and most susceptible amongst us. The information and the legislation stay on our facet, and we are going to proceed to defend the lifesaving and compassionate care offered to Maya Kowalski by the physicians, nurses and workers of Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital and the accountability of all necessary reporters in Florida to talk up if they think baby abuse.”
Maya Kowalski’s mom, Beata Kowalski, was accused of Munchausen by proxy after explaining her daughter’s CRPS and therapy to hospital workers. (Netflix/’Take Care of Maya’)
The case has made latest headlines after it impressed the favored documentary sequence “Take Care of Maya,” which follows the story of Maya and Beata as they navigated Maya’s uncommon, persistent neurological situation referred to as complicated regional ache syndrome (CRPS) – an obscure situation that causes extreme ache all through an individual’s physique attributable to nervous system dysfunction, in accordance with the Cleveland Clinic.
In 2016, Maya was admitted to JHAC in St. Petersburg for extreme ache attributable to her CRPS, which was beforehand identified by one other Florida physician.
Later that 12 months, a court docket order eliminated Maya from the custody of her mother and father after workers accused Beata of medical abuse, saying that she exhibited indicators of Munchausen by proxy — a type of medical abuse.
Maya Kowalski testified Monday in a Florida courtroom about her expertise battling CRPS at Johns Hopkins All Kids’s Hospital. (homas Bender/Sarasota Herald-Tribune Pool Photograph/Thomas Bender / USA TODAY NETWORK)
The Kowalskis’ lawyer, Greg Anderson, described JHAC as “a completely dysfunctional group,” including that the “Kowalskis paid the worth” for that dysfunction.
Beata hanged herself in her storage in January 2017 after being separate from her hospitalized daughter for months.
‘TAKE CARE OF MAYA’: PHOTOS OF PLAINTIFF IN $220M HOSPITAL LAWSUIT CREATE CONTROVERSY AMID EXPLOSIVE CASE
A number of witnesses, together with well being care professionals at JHAC, maintained throughout the trial that Beata had been exhibiting indicators of Munchausen by proxy and that Maya’s perceived CRPS signs had been pushed by her mom. Munchausen by proxy is a psychological dysfunction wherein an abusive mum or dad or caretaker makes up or causes an sickness for an individual below their care — typically the mum or dad’s personal baby — who shouldn’t be really ailing.
Netflix’s “Take Care of Maya” follows the story of Maya Kowalski and her mom, Beata Kowalski — a registered nurse — as they navigate Maya’s uncommon, persistent neurological situation referred to as complicated regional ache syndrome (CRPS). Maya and her household at the moment are suing JHAC for inflicting undue hurt — and pushing Beata to suicide — by reporting the mom for medical baby abuse in 2015 and holding Maya involuntarily for greater than 80 days. (Netflix/’Take Care of Maya’)
“Some of the unlucky components of this case is the caption: Kowalskis v. All Kids’s. We had been by no means towards the Kowalski household,” lawyer Ethen Shapiro, who represented JHAC, stated in his closing statements Tuesday. “The rationale why All Kids’s did what it did, the explanation why All Kids’s tried to consolation Maya, the explanation why All Kids’s tried to get her on a secure medical path is as a result of the loving and caring suppliers at my shoppers’ hospital believed in a greater future for her if they may get her off the pointless medicine given at harmful ranges.”
‘TAKE CARE OF MAYA’: ALLEGED MEDICAL ABUSE CASE THAT TORE FAMILY APART HEADS TO TRIAL
The protection additionally accused Beata of giving her daughter unsafe doses of ketamine. The hospital’s protection staff argued that the trial is consultant of the accountability that hospital workers need to report suspected baby abuse to authorities.
Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick, who focuses on ache aid, initially identified Maya with CRPS when she was 9 years previous and helped her get therapy for the sickness, which included doses of ketamine to assist uninteresting her ache. (Netflix/’Take Care of Maya’)
The Kowalski household alleged that the facility of the massive hospital system, mixed with the facility of the state, made them helpless in attempting to get applicable assist for his or her daughter. And being separated precipitated extreme emotional misery for each Maya and her mom, who hanged herself of their storage in January 2017 after going months with out seeing Maya.
The Kowalskis additionally say the hospital billed their insurance coverage firm 1000’s of {dollars} for CRPS therapies regardless of the workers’s claims that Maya didn’t have CRPS.
Maya’s father sued JHAC and medical personnel assigned to his daughter’s therapy in 2018, alleging that the hospital had falsely accused Beata of medically abusing Maya and failing to correctly take care of his daughter, inflicting his household emotional misery. (Thomas Bender/Sarasota Herald-Tribune Pool Photograph/USA TODAY NETWORK)
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JHAC beforehand advised Fox Information Digital in a press release that the hospital’s precedence is “at all times the protection and privateness” of its “sufferers and their households.”
“Due to this fact, we comply with federal privateness legal guidelines that restrict the quantity of data we are able to launch concerning any specific case. Our first accountability is at all times to the kid dropped at us for care, and we’re legally obligated to inform [DCF] once we detect indicators of potential abuse or neglect,” the hospital stated. “It’s DCF that investigates the scenario and makes the final word determination about what plan of action is in the very best curiosity of the kid.”
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