The right of parents to determine the course of medical treatment for their children has suffered yet another slap in the face.
On April 29, 2013, a hearing took place regarding the Gestapo style abduction by Child Protective Services of 5 month old baby Sammy after his parents, Alex and Anna Nikolayev, took him out of Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento.
They left Sutter Memorial in order to seek a second opinion at Kaiser Permanente, a rival hospital, for Sammy’s flu-like symptoms.
Anna and Alex sought medical treatment at Kaiser because they were extremely concerned about the quality of care baby Sammy was receiving at Sutter Memorial.
When doctors at Sutter Memorial began discussing the possibility of heart surgery for the infant, the alarmed parents took the baby and left as the medical staff would not discharge Sammy so they could seek another opinion regarding the child’s heart murmur.
“If we got the one mistake after another, I don’t want to have my baby have surgery in the hospital where I don’t feel safe,” Anna said.
She added, ”We went from one hospital to another. We just wanted to be safe, that he is in good hands.”
While at the second hospital, medical staff determined Sammy was fine. The attending doctor at Kaiser said in a written statement, “I do not have concern for the safety of the child at home with his parents.”
Despite the all clear from the medical staff at Kaiser, CPS escorted by armed police showed up at the Nikolayev’s home the next day and took baby Sammy in outrageous and dramatic fashion.
Anna’s home video of the incident shows police entering the home.
“I’m going to grab your baby, and don’t resist, and don’t fight me ok?” a Sacramento police officer is heard saying in the video.
Prior to abducting the baby without so much as a warrant, Alex was slammed against a wall, pushed to the ground and his house keys forcibly removed from him after meeting with officers outside.
Worst of all, after taking the baby, CPS returned the child to the protective custody of the exact same hospital the parents had originally fled to seek a second medical opinion – Sutter Memorial – for wanting to perform unnecessary open heart surgery on the infant.
Court Hearing a Slap in the Face to Parent Rights
At a hearing on the matter, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Paul Seave determined that custody should be immediately returned to the parents.
The Nikolayevs can now see Sammy whenever they want. They also supposedly now have full control over the child’s medical decisions.
In reality, however, the Nikolayevs are still under the thumb of CPS and their rights as parents continue to be violated.
Rather than the child returning home where the parents would continue under the care of medical staff at Kaiser Permanente which was their original choice, baby Sammy was transferred by court order to yet a third hospital – Stanford Medical Center.
The judge also ruled that Anna and Alex must follow all medical advice from now on, including not taking their child from Stanford Medical Center without proper discharge.
Why are Anna and Alex being forced to follow the medical advice of Stanford Medical Center and not the medical staff at Kaiser Permanente who determined the child was safe at home for the time being?
Why is this child still in the hospital and not at home and under the supervision of the medical staff the parents originally chose?
Most alarming, Child Protective Services is still involved with this case even after its Gestapo style abduction of the child as captured on home video.
While Sammy will be returned to the custody of his parents upon discharge from Stanford Medical Center, CPS will continue to monitor the situation with regular home visits by a social worker.
Why is CPS being permitted by the court to monitor this child when the parents did nothing wrong?
Inexplicably, Alex and Anna are still vulnerable to future action by CPS for the “crime” of seeking the medical care for Sammy that they saw fit.
Welcome to Soviet Amerika comrades.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources: Judge Orders Transport of Baby Sammy to Stanford Medical Center
Baby Taken By CPS Returned, Parents Ordered To ‘Follow All Medical Advice’
if i didnt have grandbabies here in usa id move to europe..in a heart beat i am so sick of the BS in this country! im embaresed to even say im American..
id fight this BS all the way to the supreme courts! for all the familys of the future, we are no longer free in America, and the news and stories like this prove it every day!!!!
This whole situation is so sad and scary.
We just had CPS called on us for refusing eye ointment for our newborn.. Nothing came of it, but seriously, worry less about parents making informed medical decisions and worry more about the people that beat their kids and smoke crack around them.
It’s called job security and paying for their vacation homes. They must have good insurance and it pissed them off that they didn’t blindly fall for surgery and say ok.
I hate this. That poor family… Makes me scared to take my daughter to the hospital for any reason.
Lots of prayer and many law suits. Hit them hard too!
I worked for CPS for a few years and I think some understanding of how these things work would go a long way. When someone makes a report, especially a mandated reporter like a doctor, it has to be taken seriously and investigated. If the child is considered at risk of dying without treatment, which apparently the first hospital made it sound like he was, CPS is obligated to make sure that the baby is going to receive life-saving treatment. Parents do not currently have the right to let their children die, knowing that treatment is available that could save them. That is considered medical neglect. So really, if you want to be upset with someone, it should be the first hospital. If this child was not actually in critical condition or at risk of dying, they should be held accountable for making a malicious and false report, causing these people a lot of heartache and problems. But as a protective agency, CPS has to make darn sure that the baby does not actually need heart surgery or whatever this first hospital claimed he needed. It is very hard to dismiss a team of medical professionals making such claims. I agree that it’s terrifying and awful to have a baby taken away, but I can also understand why CPS would be concerned with the stuff the first hospital was saying about the baby’s condition. The reason they are still involved is not to control everything. Once they are sure the baby is completely in the clear medically, they will not need to be involved. People act like CPS is bored and has nothing better to do than be involved with people who don’t need them. In most places, they are overwhelmed with work and reports, not twiddling their thumbs trying to figure out how to ruin some innocent person’s life. I agree there are bad CPS workers and supervisors, but usually that is not the case. Additionally, they cannot just blab to the public about the case because it’s confidential. There could very well be information you don’t know, which is often the case with people claiming their kids were taken away because they spanked them, which I hear all the time. CPS doesn’t take kids for spankings because spankings are not illegal and no judge would ever go along with that. Beating your kid’s butt black and blue with a board is illegal, and that is usually the kind of stuff parents forget to mention while they complain about CPS.
Yes, Danielle- CPS has a right/obligation to —INVESTIGATE… Not take the child away!! They could have even demanded that the parents go ahead at this time and bring the baby BACK into medical care facility right now <> to make sure his life was not in danger and he could have stayed with his parents the while time in his own safe car seat etc etc. these would have been HALFWAY reasonable courses if action!
I know because after my home birth I needed stitches and the hospital fabricated stories in order to get CPS to come to my home and harass me the morning after having my baby. They did come interview me, find the baby was fine then LEFT. This even was unacceptable but what these people have endured is pure insanity and I can’t believe that you even attempt to apply reason to it!
Has a petition been started yet?
that’s why they call it a ‘practice’! So many things out of control… look at how cancer is treated… like the days when they bled people! Big Pharma doesn’t want us taking the responsibility for ourselves, staying well, they are drug pushers, using doctors and the medical system. Wake up people, the politicians are selling out! Now they’re threatened by us because we have figured out how to take care of ourselves w/out their system! Hilary Clinton and her stupid statement, it takes a village… well… if it took a village to conceive! ugh! So ridiculous. Just makes me roll my eyes.