Comment #3

PERDUE — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:32:41 GMT

It is done all the time, yet you never hear about it. Last time I checked none of these (well meaning) people will treat anyone for free!! Yet they are so full of such helpful suggestions!!! We don't know if this woman's insurance said no. We don't know if this woman even has health insurance.<br />Trust me, I remember all the hell and resistance when I was trying to get help for my two year old son. And guess what his diagnosis was after almost two years........<br />AUTISM!!! I had to fight tw... [ More ]

Comment #2

pumpi76 — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:27:54 GMT

14 and 500 pounds why did they let it go that far? as soon as he reaches 300 pounds they should had intervene...

Comment #1

pumpi76 — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:24:37 GMT

Just to prove a point about media bias...How come no media has cover that...

Original Blog Entry: Mother of 555 pound teenager charged with neglect

truesee — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:16:14 GMT

Posted: Thursday, 25 June 2009 9:01PM

Mother of 555 pound teenager charged with neglect

WBBM News Radio 780

(CBS) A mother is being charged with neglecting her obese teenage son, raising issues about whether the government has the right to intervene in one's family life.

Born and raised in South Carolina, Alexander Draper grew up to reach a dangerous 555 pounds by the age of 14. That's when law enforcement stepped in.

The first and foremost concern is Alexander's health, Lt. Shea Smith told CBS News.

Alexander's mother, Jerri Gray, was charged with unlawful neglect of a child for allowing him to become obese.

There have been opportunities to get Alexander some treatment over the course of the last several months and unfortunately some of those things have not been taken advantage of, Smith said.

But Gray, released from jail Monday on $50,000 bond, says she does not have enough money to get her son the treatment he needs.

Alexander is in the custody of the Department of Social Services, who in a statement to CBS News said they only intervene when health care professionals believe a child is at risk of harm.

Obviously her son is certainly in need of some medical attention, Lt. Smith said.

Jerri Gray and her defense attorney, Kim and Grant Varner, appeared on The Early Show Thursday to discuss the situation.

Asked how his weight gain got so out of control, Gray said, Well, a lot of times it had to do with lifestyle. A lot of times I had to work fulltime second shift or fulltime, third shift. And I wasn't home a lot.

Gray told guest host and Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden she had been monitoring her son's diet, but that there were times she had to purchase fast food, when she'd have to sleep between shifts.

Asked if there are steps she could've taken earlier to have helped him not reach that level of weight, Gray said, When I had a second shift hob, I would've rather been home, so that I could've spent more time focusing on preparing more low-fat type-meals.

While Alex is under state care right now, Gray believes her son needs to be with her. Mentally he needs to be with me. We both need to be included together in whatever program that they have to offer so that we both can benefit from it. So as our lives go on together, then we will have learned how to control it and keep it under control.

STORY FOUND IN NEWSWEEK

The Greenville County Sheriff's Office-AP

Jerri Althea Gray (left) and her son, Alexander Draper (right)

What Makes a Parent Negligent?

After courts questioned the way they cared for their sick kids, two mothers in different states ran away with their children. Why 'neglect' is such a complicated concept, and why loving a child isn't always enough.

Kate Dailey

Newsweek Web Exclusive

May 23, 2009

Updated: 1:05 a.m. ET May 23, 2009

The word neglect implies that someone has given up caring. But in cases of medical neglect by parents, it can be just the opposite. Recent, highly publicized cases of child medical neglect highlight this paradox. Take Daniel Hauser, the Minnesota boy currently on the run with his mother to avoid court-ordered medical treatment for his cancer. His parents care deeply about his health and well-being, but in a way that conflicts with the best-accepted medical practices for treating Hodgkin's lymphoma (They want to treat him with holistic therapies).

In some cases, parents don't have the ability or resources to give their children the help they need, but also can't bear to give them up, which may be the case with a South Carolina woman, Jerri Althea Gray. Gray and her son, Alexander Draper, fled the state on Thursday, May 21, allegedly to avoid a court hearing to determine if she was being medically negligent in caring for her son. If so, custody of the child would be turned over to the state Department of Social Services. Alexander, 14, weighs 555 pounds, and though authorities have cited his weight as a main concern, they also allude to more pressing medical problems that prompted social services to take action. (The South Carolina DSS issued a statement saying their involvement is always limited to cases where health-care professionals believe a child is at risk of harm because a parent is neglecting to provide necessary medical care. DSS would not take action based on a child's weight alone. )

That day, both Gray and Draper were discovered at a laundromat in Maryland. Gray was arrested on a S.C. warrant for violating a child custody order and taken to a correctional facility in Baltimore. Her son was examined by paramedics and turned over to the Maryland Department of Social Services while arrangements were being made to get him back to his home state.

With the case of Daniel Hauser, the state was able to make a very clear argument for what they consider neglect: Daniel had cancer that was 90 percent curable with a certain treatment, and his parents were refusing that care. (Whether or not you think it's neglect is a different matter: a Newsvine poll posted on Thursday is split almost down the middle.)

We don't have nearly as much information about Alexander Draper's condition, except that the charges of neglect are in some way related to his extreme obesity. But his mother's arrest has raised questions. What constitutes medical neglect when cases aren't as clear-cut as Daniel Hauser's? It's neglect if a mother isn't giving her sick child proper medication. But what if she's missing doctor's appointments for a chronic condition? Not feeding a child is neglect, but what if a father only feeds his son donuts and soda? There's clear precedent for the state to step in if a parent isn't doing anything to stop cancer that could kill a child in six months. But what if a parent isn't doing anything to stop the onset of type 2 diabetes, a condition that could cause serious lifelong problems and eventual death?

As a matter of necessity, cases of neglect taken on by the DSS in most states are ones that are incredibly dire. I don't think any social-service agency that's operating at all sensibly will try to look very far in the future if you're talking about things like diet, says Carl E. Schneider, a professor of internal medicine and law at the University of Michigan and a member of the president's commission on bioethics. They're always under-funded, they always have all these acute cases to worry about, and in terms of allocation of those limited resources, you have to go where those acute problems are.

In fact, the social-service stories that often make the news are ones where agencies didn't intervene in time: where they failed to protect severely abused children. Sadly, the cases only attract public attention when the neglect results in death or serious harm.

But aside from structural problems within the social-service system, Schneider points out the extremely challenging position the state faces when the issue is medical neglect. [The state] can tell you to take better care of your child, and if you just don't do it, then what? It's hard to sanction parents, he says. Are you going to fine some parent who is probably poor to start off with? Are you going to put the mother in jail? That won't do the kid any good. After that, you have to start talking about taking the child away, and that is unlikely to be a good thing.

The effects of poverty can't be overlooked when evaluating cases of possible neglect. Doctor's appointments and medicine are expensive. The government provides social services to help parents who don't have the financial or emotional means to care for a child, but understanding, accessing and corralling those services which can be spread out through different departments and branches of government can prove challenging for even the most organized parent. And the parents who end up working with social services are often facing circumstances that make being organized nearly impossible. Many don't get paid sick leave, so taking a child to a Medicaid doctor across town can mean losing a day's pay or even a job if the absences are repeated. Often, says Schneider, these are parents who are leading very, very difficult lives with all kinds of horrifying problems to deal with, and the child is only part of the difficulty of their lives. They have very few resources for helping themselves, much less helping the child.

In situations like these, the state has to make a choice between endangering a minor's physical health by doing nothing, or endangering his emotional health by taking away whatever stability the family provides. Even when parents love their children, the government often has to determine if that love is enough. It's never easy, it's always heartbreaking and worst of all the child loses out, one way or another.

LINK TO ORGINAL STORY:

http://www.mahalo.com/alexander-draper

... [ More ]