All Mothers In Mass Hospitals Are Evaluated

All Mothers In Mass Hospitals Are Evaluated

January 2002

Although the mothers do not realize it, they are all evaluated when they are in the maternity wards at Massachusetts hospitals.

This became apparent last summer when Massachusetts state police raided a mother’s room with DSS agents and seized a newborn baby from the Mary Lane Hospital in Ware, which is near Springfield.

After giving birth on Sunday, August 5, the mother was celebrating with her family in her hospital room on Monday. A nurse entered the room and took the baby, saying she had to check his vital signs.

Within minutes, a posse of police, state police and DSS social workers swarmed the room and informed the family that DSS had taken the baby due to a 51A report of “neglect,” which had been filed by a nurse only hours after the baby was born. The report alleges that the mother had not fed her baby “the right way” when she was in recovery and had allowed the grandmother to hold and feed the newborn.

The physician, Dr. Torbin Iverson, entered the mother’s room to see what was occurring and expressed his shock and confusion at the state’s action. He told MassNews that the mother and baby were doing well and he had not seen any problems. It was difficult to understand how the charge of “not feeding right” could be made while the mother was under the care, supervision, and scrutiny of maternity ward staff.

The grandmother told MassNews that when she drove up to the hospital to visit her daughter, she saw a DSS social worker running out of the hospital with the baby, flanked by state and local police. She said a state policeman prevented her from entering the hospital.

A copy of the “Nursing Progress Continuation Notes” from the hospital shows that DSS told the hospital to issue a “51A Neglect Report” against the mother. The hospital informed DSS that they were unable to establish neglect in such a short time, yet, they filed the 51A anyway with DSS social worker Kay Durepo.

They wrote in their nursing records, “51A form sent to DSS per their request. DSS aware that we are unable to establish neglect in such a short period of time. Form sent regardless.”

The lawyer for the mother, Greg Hession, says that DSS acted against the mother in reprisal because she has a lawsuit against the agency

Even the Boston Globe wrote a lengthy, concerned story about the raid. The event was reported in full in the Sept. 2001 issue of MassNews.