"Back in February, 2013 the Connecticut teen went to Children's Hospital for a consultation to complement her medical care at Boston's New England Medical Center (NEMC).
NEMC doctors were treating Justina for mitochondrial disease, a little-understood physical illness affecting energy production inside cells that is believed to cause muscle weakness, among many other symptoms.
But the Children's Hospital doctors disagreed.They claimed Justina was psychiatrically ill, had no real physical problems, and was actually suffering with somatoform disorder -- a condition in which underlying, unresolved psychological problems make someone act physically ill.
When Justina's parents rejected that interpretation of her condition, Children's Hospital refused to release her.
Ultimately, they went to court and were able to convince a judge to award permanent custody of Justina to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF).
Let's reduce that story to its basic truth: Boston Children's Hospital and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts refused to return a child to her family because they believed she should be treated as mentally ill, not physically ill, even though doctors at an esteemed Boston teaching hospital (NEMC) disagreed and her parents wanted to have the NEMC doctors keep treating her.
And, guess what? After all the "expert" psychiatric care provided on a locked psychiatry unit at Children's Hospital for Justina, after well over a year being separated from her parents and sisters and her pets, she remains in a wheelchair.
After all that time and all that psychiatric care, the consensus is now that she suffers with physical symptoms, just like NEMC physicians always said she did.
After the "kidnapping" of Justina by Children's Hospital and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, everyone now agrees she can just go home."
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