Parental Rights

Lenore Skenazy | 12.13.2023 3:45 PM

Maya Kowalski was admitted to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in 2016. She was 10-years-old at the time and in extreme pain from a condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS).

Sally Smith, a child abuse pediatrician who worked at the hospital through a state contract with child protective services, insisted Maya's condition was caused and exaggerated by her manipulative mother—so-called Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Deferring to Smith (over the diagnosis of Maya's doctor, a CRPS specialist), the hospital kept Maya isolated from her family for three months as she suffered in excruciating pain and loneliness, crying for her mother, who was not allowed to visit.

In despair, Maya's mother killed herself.

The Kowalskis' story is told in the Netflix documentary Take Care of Maya. Last month, a jury awarded Maya and her family $261 million for false imprisonment, medical negligence, and other charges.

At the end of the documentary, about a dozen parents briefly comment........

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