I was reading, "A
mother faces her day of reckoning", by Nancy Cambria (ST. LOUIS
POST-DISPATCH 01/17/2008), which begins, "ST. CHARLES
COUNTY--Rebecca Smith was born Nov. 17, 1992, with a heart so leaky
surgeons squeezed it tight with a sliver of Gore-tex no wider than a
strand of dental floss.
There were other
holes to repair in the newborn's heart, but surgeons at Texas
Children's Hospital were optimistic the heart would grow enough to
remove the band and fix it.
It took 12 years and
finally the efforts of a school nurse to press Becca's mother and
stepfather to take her to a doctor. The exam by St. Peters
pediatrician Judith Stucki-Simeon found Becca was severely deprived
of oxygen and prompted an immediate trip to a cardiologist. The tiny
thread, once a lifeline, had been strangling Becca's growing heart,
turning her lips blue and flattening the tips of her fingers.
On April 9, 2005,
just two days after being discharged from St. Louis Children's
Hospital after surgery to remove the band, Becca, a Bryan Middle
School fifth-grader with wispy brown hair, collapsed and died of
pneumonia."
It goes on to say,
"Now, a St. Charles County Circuit Court judge will decide if her
mother, now named Jaimie Rivale, will serve jail time after
tearfully pleading guilty in November of involuntary manslaughter in
her daughter's death.
Prosecutors contend
that Rivale, 31, knew of Becca's ailing heart. They say she failed
to give her medical care "in a timely manner," playing down her
daughter's deteriorating condition. The surgery carried little risk
if it had been done when Becca was 1, but led to fatal complications
because of its delay.
Prosecutors are
asking for four years."
Of course, Missouri,
as well as other states are flashing contradictions in our faces on
a regular basis. Why is this mother being charged, while insurance
companies can readily deny payment for necessary treatment even when
knowing full well the person will die without it? Why isn't CIGNA
being charged with the death of 17 year-old Nataline Sarkisya
(California)? They knowingly denied her treatment and thereby gave
her a death sentence. I would suggest that proves there are two sets
of rules. One for the insurance companies (and powerful allies) and
another for the average person who does not have all the advantages
Back in the Kansas
City, Missouri area,
KMBC.com
reported (Feb. 10, 2006) that Tracy Pierce, 37, died after the
insurance company First-Health Coventry refused to pay for treatment
for his cancer. One would think it could not get any worse, but it
does. "Cancer ravaged his body, moving from his kidney to his lungs
and to his brain.
"Now, we're just to
the point where we're trying to make him comfortable," Julie Pierce
said.
Even as he was dying,
for more than a week, his insurance company denied him oral
morphine, which had been prescribed to reduce his pain."
Why hasn't this
insurance company been charged with knowingly murdering this man?
Why hasn't it been charged with the crime of torture, assault and
crimes against humanity?
Coventry doesn't just
blatantly deny adults medical care, they also freely deny children.
Nathan Crabtree was twelve years old when it was discovered that he
had an aggressive form of leukemia. "Doctors wrote to Nathan's
insurance company, urging it to send him to the nation's foremost
research hospital. Nathan's bags were packed, when his father's
insurance company, Coventry, refused to pay for that care, calling
it "experimental."
"You don't have
anyone to fight for you," said Lee Crabtree, Nathan's father."
It can be said that
if you see someone on a daily basis, you should notice when
something isn't right. That works both ways. Sometimes seeing a
gradual decline can actually make the decline invisible. It becomes
the norm, rather than something standing out and slapping a person
in the face of realization. It's actually why some asthma sufferers
have found themselves in life-threatening situations. They are so
use to having difficulty breathing, they sometimes don't realize
just how much trouble they are actually in. Could that have been the
case with Becca Smith and her mother?
I can't read Jaimie
Rivale's mind. I don't know what she was thinking. I don't know if
she is guilty of the neglect they are placing on her, or a victim of
a medical problem and lack of adequate information.
I don't know why
Rivale alone is being charged when it appears the school felt itself
aware. If school officials were aware/realizing, and feeling the
mother was being negligent in her daughter's healthcare, and did not
report it to Family Services, who would have (or should have) forced
medical treatment, how come they are not also being charged
criminally due to their neglect?
It is so sad this
young girl, Becca Smith, had to die unnecessarily, but there is the
possibility that she died, in part, due to ignorance of the facts.
On the other hand, the insurance companies knew full-well they were
sentencing Nataline Sarkisya, Tracy Pierce and Nathan Crabtree to
death when they caused treatment to be refused. Why aren't they
being charged in the deaths they caused (and almost caused) or do we
just go after the helpless of our society to make it look good? Make
it look like we still care on some level of the humanity that has
been readily declining over the years?
Maybe it is time to
step back and take a good long look at the world around us, and ask
ourselves how we got to this madness we live in. A madness that
allows a mother to be charged in the death of her daughter because
she should have known, while thinking nothing of insurance companies
causing pain, suffering and deaths when they know exactly what they
are doing! Know exactly and go on doing it anyways as if it is
somehow their divine right to collect the money and make life and
death decisions because they can!
Carrie Hutchens
is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is
active in fighting against the death culture movement and the
injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.
