In 2016, a young mother had custody of her one-month-old baby taken away due to medical error, after she took her child to hospital with a broken bone. Suspected of violence, she now wants to obtain compensation.
Six years later, the trauma is still vivid for Émeline Hautecoeur. In 2016, this young mother saw herself remove custody of your baby one month by social services due to misdiagnosis, after a visit to the hospital. If her little boy has now returned to her side, she is seeking compensation from the courts, while her life has been completely turned upside down. It was on November 29, 2016, seven weeks after the birth of their son Owen, that Emeline and her companion went to the Corbeil-Essonnes hospital, after noticing an unexplained swelling in their son’s thigh. After a first X-ray and an ultrasound, the diagnosis falls: the little boy suffers from a broken bone. From then on, the family was redirected to the Robert-Debré hospital so that he could be plastered.
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“As soon as we arrived, there was an uproar from the medical team. suspicion of violence on our side”entrusts Émeline Hautecoeur to BFMwhich reports the “contempt” medical teams towards them, while “periosteal appositions” are detected on the child, thus suggestingold fractures. From then on, the parents of little Owen were interviewed by the police, and their apartment, judged “problem” because of the presence of animals, is searched. A few days after their first visit to the hospital, on December 7, 2016, the public prosecutor of Melun ordered the provisional placement of the little boy. His parents will then only be able to see him for two hours a week, for two weeks.
Vitamin D deficiency detected
For Émeline Hautecoeur and her companion, it was only the beginning of a long ordeal. The following December 23, a few days before Christmas, a children’s judge from the Melun court confirmed the placement of their baby pending medical expertise, which would last two months. Quickly, she concludes that Owen suffers from a deficiency in vitamin D which causes bone fragility and explains the fracture. Despite this verdict, he remains placed until February 2017. Three and a half months of traumatic separation and “unjust” for the couple, who then lost “confidence in his ability” to take care of his son, notes the juvenile court of Melun, which also reports that Owen’s parents are from then on “worried about the actions they can take to avoid risking a new fracture”.
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Unrecognized medical error
“When we have suspicions, when we do exams, when we question the parents, it’s normal. But it should never have gone as far as placement”deplores with BFM Émeline Hautecoeur, whose companion made a suicide attempt when little Owen was placed, before his couple exploded after his return to their home. “This decision was not taken in the medical interest of the child, but to preserve the hospital. If they had immediately carried out additional examinations, there would have been immediate medical care adapted to Owen “, judges his mother today. Dismissed by the administrative court of Paris, Émeline Hautecoeur is considering appealing this decision to obtain compensation, and above all, to have what she considers to be a medical error on the part of the Robert-Debré hospital recognized, and which deprived of her baby for almost four months.