Police: Girl may die if not returned to hospital
PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities in Arizona say a young girl with leukemia and a heart catheter could die if she is not brought back to a Phoenix hospital after her parents inexplicably removed her from the facility last week.
Phoenix police are asking anyone with information to come forward. Health privacy laws prevent them from releasing their names.
The 11-yearold girl authorities are only calling Emily had been receiving chemotherapy at Phoenix Children's Hospital for about a month.
Phoenix police Sgt. Steve Martos says an infection forced doctors to amputate her right arm and insert a heart catheter. The device was set to be taken out before her mother removed an IV from the girl and walked her out of the hospital Wednesday night.
Martos says the catheter could cause a deadly infection
Phoenix police are asking anyone with information to come forward. Health privacy laws prevent them from releasing their names.
The 11-yearold girl authorities are only calling Emily had been receiving chemotherapy at Phoenix Children's Hospital for about a month.
Phoenix police Sgt. Steve Martos says an infection forced doctors to amputate her right arm and insert a heart catheter. The device was set to be taken out before her mother removed an IV from the girl and walked her out of the hospital Wednesday night.
Martos says the catheter could cause a deadly infection
My family is in healthcare and many of my family (generational) have dealt with cancer. This I can say - THERE ARE MANY IN HEALTH CARE WHO DO NOT AGREE WITH THE CANCER TREATMENTS. When in fact many of these treatments actually help hasten death!
This should be a family decision - not the doctors! Whether you agree or not, you should be concerned that there has been a gradual movement over the years to where parents have little or no say over raising their child!
Do more research..........we don't even know the half of it.......their is a lot more to this story......their has to be........nobody forced the girl to leave......she left willingly.........she (emily) is 11years old.......If she had wanted to stay she could have made a scene.......but she didn't..........her parents just helped her........I don't agree nor do I disagree........I do not know all the facts......
 @kristina I'm just curious, why do you write like this? Do also speak with a pauses between words?
 @Larry*X*K  @kristina Hopefully she's not also a close talker. That would make for one long and awkward conversation.Â
So now you can't remove your child from a hospital? I bet even if they return her she will still die. This is getting to be too much when the courts, doctors and everyone else thinks they have more say over your life or your childs life. Let the family be.
 @Willie69 If the heart cath had been removed, no one could say anything, but that is potentially a 'time bomb' that might kill her sooner than the leukemia will.
I'm surprised a court order/warrant hasn't been issued for the return of the child. If there was, then not only could the names be released, but other info as well.
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Likely a lot more to this story that has been reported.
 @DontTreadonMe Yeah, her parents are idiots
I hope that this little girl is found and that she is not harmed by the actions of her mother. Prayers & good wishes to Emily - keep her safe wherever she may be.
Tough one. The heart catheter is just an implanted vascular access. Fairly common and typical of cancer patients. Properly cared for they last years. Not an issue if mom knows how to care for it. Mom just might have found alternative treatment for her. Some of those are just as effective. Hospitals and the legal system don't always have all of the answers. If you had a slim chance to recover and a short term of life left, would you rather live out your life surrounded by family at home? Or spend it in isolation in a hospital for the same amount of time. Tough choice sometimes. Quality of life is sometimes a better option. We don't know all the story here. What treatment options were they given.
 @TheBaldone Well, it calls it a catheter and not a 'port'. Different? Or is it just being presented that way in order to stir up people against the parent?
@Commenter87643 @TheBaldone Could be a hickman, Groshong or a PICC. All are manageable at home by parents. We don't know the whole story. I personally think the hospital screwed up with a chemo IV which caused the child to lose her arm and Mom is done with that hospital.
 @TheBaldone  @Commenter87643  @TheBaldone Yes, medicos can be awfully bent on their own agendas, even after they screw up.
 @TheBaldone Why didn't mom let the nurses know she wanted to take her daughter home?  Hospitals are not prison wards-they cannot hold people against their will (unless they are on a court ordered hold).  Her nurse would have contacted her MD and arranged for the child to leave-probably against medical advice but she still would have gotten prescriptions and the IV properly disconnected or removed.  It is completely irresponsible on her mother's behalf to just leave.  I am curious what she had infusing prior to the IV being disconnected...
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@jules1968 @TheBaldone oh - you don't get it! parents no longer have rights! Look at what Children's did to that family! More and more health care providers and educators have huge egos and know that the laws permit them more rights than the parents over the kids.
@raven You need to realize that there is no such thing as 100% error proof hospitals so yes occassionally you are going to hear about things that happen in hospitals and their staff!!! Parents do have rights and IF she told the staff she wanted to take her daughter home of course they are going to tell her that they do not recommend it but according to the law you can take your child out of a hospital as long as medical equipment such as the catheter are first removed safely by the staff.
 @raven http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/03/cancer-ward-patient-missing-arizona-police-11-year-old-girl-hospital-mom_n_2228246.html  Sorry--it wasn't CNN but this article and video instead.  There is a little bit more info than what Komo is reporting.
@jules1968 You are absolutely right!! The mother could have asked them to remove the catheter safely and then took her home especially since she was only supposed to be there 1 day anyways. I also believes the mothers motives are truly selfish and everytime I see that picture it breaks my heart!!!
 @raven What  don"t I get?  I think her parents have every right to take her home from the hospital and as a healthcare professional myself I DO NOT have more rights over the parents.  The only point I am trying to make here is -Why didn't she give the staff a few minutes to properly see her out the door?  When I have had patients leave against medical advice I still try to make sure their  IVs are out and they know how to properly care for themselves at home.  If I was her nurse, I would be feeling awful right now that her mother didn't give me a chance to do this for them.  If everyone would read the article correctly, it said that the device (IV catheter) was set to be removed...which means her parents would not have been taught how to care for it.  I saw a video on CNN that says she was to discharged the next day and that her parents are from Mexico.  I think her mother had more selfish motives removing her from the hospital.  Also, where in the article did it state that her arm was amputated do to an infiltrated IV line with a chemo drug running through it?
 @jules1968  @TheBaldone Maybe mom tried talking to the nurses about taking her daughter  elsewhere and the staff did not agree. Maybe her daughter was in so much pain she just wanted to be wit her family. We don't know the whole story.Â
@jules1968 @TheBaldone It could be equally irresponsible of the hospital to allow a vesicant chemotherapy to infuse into her childs arm and necrose it. I would have a hard time keeping my kid in a hospital that allowed that to happen, if in fact that is what happened. Like I said, all we have is the hospitals side. And if the infusion that she disconnected was saline, it is easy to disconnect by Mom. Most patients have home infusion running that they hook and unhook. They are trained to do that when the line is implanted.
And the infection in the arm was probably a chemo infusion that infused (infiltrated) into her arm instead of the vein. Hence the "Heart catheter" for further infusions.
Maybe mom is taking her to a different hospital for a second opinion.
I'd think if that would have happened the police would know by now.....