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Parents fight for diabetic kids’ rights

December 8, 2008

Her diabetic son wasn’t allowed to prick his finger in school to test his blood sugar, and some days the nurse wasn’t available, so Kari Christiansen would drive there every two hours to make sure he didn’t suffer a serious reaction.

Christiansen had to shuttle the then-kindergartner’s blood-testing device back and forth from Westchester Primary School. It was banned from the bus because administrators considered the tiny lancet a weapon.

When she learned that Carter, nearly unconscious, had fallen in the school hallway, Christiansen and her husband took steps to end their “nightmare.” They got a lawyer to fight for his rights.

“They refused to train anybody in the building about diabetes,” Christiansen said, recalling that officials were worried about spilled blood. “Somebody could come upon him unconscious, and nobody would know what to do.”

 

Read Article: Chicago Tribune

 

Advocates: Improve state schools immediately

Advocates for Texans with disabilities on Friday called on the state to take immediate action to improve conditions at institutions for people with mental retardation after a federal report this week said the facilities repeatedly fail to protect residents.

 

Representatives of Advocacy Inc., said Texas should stop admissions to all 13 facilities, known as state schools. They also called for the facilities to prohibit use of restraints, such as straitjackets, and stop dispensing psychiatric medication, except in cases that have been thoroughly reviewed.

 

“If not, more people are going to die,” said Beth Mitchell , managing attorney of Advocacy, a federally funded nonprofit that has the legal authority to investigate abuse and neglect cases at state schools. Mitchell has said the group will hire its own experts to investigate problems at the schools and will make recommendations to the state.

 

Read Article: Austin-American Statesman

 

Weak Oversight Lets Bad Hospitals Stay Open

In March 2004, Sharon Yacketta walked into University Hospital here for an operation to help control her incontinence. But her doctor, Robert S. Lai, botched the procedure, causing urine to leak into her abdomen. A month later, Dr. Lai and a second surgeon perforated her colon during a follow-up operation at University. Four years and 20 operations later, Ms. Yacketta has lost most of her colon and is still incontinent.

 

“They messed my life up,” Ms. Yacketta said of her surgeons. “I hope those doctors rot.”

Dr. Lai, who has left University and now practices outside Chicago, acknowledged that he and his surgical team had accidentally injured Ms. Yacketta but said he had not been negligent.

 

Mistakes happen even at good hospitals, of course. But evidence shows that University, which is owned by the State University of New York system, is not a good hospital. In fact, in late 2006 a state commission recommended that it be scaled back and merged with another hospital.

 

Read Article: New York Times

 

Escalators’ hidden dangers

As little Caprice Robinson stepped onto the escalator at the Kensington MARTA station east of Decatur this summer, she gripped her mom’s hand, as she had many times before. Within seconds, Caprice, then almost 3 years old, began screaming in pain.

 

The spongy pink shoe on her right foot, a knock-off of the popular Crocs, was being sucked into the gap at the side of the moving metal stairs, records show. They rode nearly to the bottom, screaming for help, before the escalator stopped. Fire Department rescuers had to pry the metal stairs apart to release Caprice’s mangled foot.

 

Several times a week people are injured on metro Atlanta escalators, reports to Georgia regulators show. While only a handful of local cases each year involve disfiguring entrapments such as what happened to Caprice, dozens of metro Atlanta escalator riders suffer serious injuries when they fall on the machinery or get cut on sharp edges, or when their clothing or luggage becomes entangled.

 

“Most of it is actually rider-related. There’s not much equipment failure at all,” said Earl Everett, director of safety engineering at the Georgia Department of Labor, which licenses and inspects escalators and moving walkways.

 

Read Article: Atlanta Journal Constitution

 

EPA’s court follies sow doubt, delay

The judge cocked her head sideways as the young government lawyer tried to justify what the EPA had done: Not much.

 

U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer could barely contain her disgust. The EPA had repeatedly failed to set pollution limits for diesel ships entering U.S. ports, including Camden and Philadelphia. Following lawsuits, the EPA had promised that it would do so by 2003, then by 2007. Now, in April 2008, EPA was saying it might – might – follow the law and do it by 2009.

 

Collyer was no liberal. A Bush appointee, she had held two political posts during the Reagan administration. But now she cast a wary eye at the lawyer for the EPA.”So you’re saying EPA could just keep granting itself extensions?” Collyer asked. Yes, the lawyer said. The judge shook her head and invoked Peter Pan. “It’s Never-Never Land,” she said. The lawyer insisted that the EPA was working on the problem. Incredulous, Collyer held up a thumb and index finger an inch apart. “This -” she said, holding her fingers aloft – “this is how much EPA has done.”

 

Read Article: Philadelphia Inquirer

 

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