Tuesday, August 10, 2010

MONDAY IN COURT, SARGENT & TRUTH / Part 275 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

He was MCFD's final witness. To tell the truth and nothing but the truth. Yesterday's witness did that I believe. His was a five page report that was thorough and well reported. I believe he told the truth in the report and under questioning by lawyer Finn Jensen and cross examination by Doug Christie yesterday.

Michael A. Sargent, is a full-time paediatric radiologist practicing in the Department of Radiology of the BC Children's Hospital for the past eighteen years. He carries the rank of Clinical Professor of Radiology with the University of British Columbia. He is presently the Acting Director in charge of the magnetic resonance imaging area at the Hospital. He is also a member of the American Society of Pediatric Neurology. He reviewed all radiological imaging studies done for Baby B that are on the PACS system of BCCH. And yesterday his testimony was decidedly not anti-Bayne.

To make a case in support of the Ministry claim that one or both of the parents was responsible for the baby's injuries, was the reason he was in court. It was at the request of Dr. Colbourne who told him “we need you.” The other radiologist on the case declined to testify. Dr. Sargent has testified in relation to Dr. Colbourne's diagnoses in other cases. The MCFD Director's case for a Continuing Care Order rests foundationally upon Dr. Colbourne's Shaken Baby diagnosis of Baby B's injuries dating to the autumn of 2007 and that diagnosis is not a stand alone call. If the diagnosis can be supported by the findings of another highly qualified expert, the case has legs. MCFD's case may be on life support now and running out of breath. When anyone tells the truth in this case it never reflects well on the MCFD. His opinions, Sargent admitted, were subjective opinions. Sargent reviewed the studies performed by other clinicians, just as ten other experts did, but each of the ten has disagreed with Colbourne's conclusion. Today, Tuesday August 10th, we hear from one of those ten, namely Dr. Barnes.

We cannot know whether Dr. Sargent's interpretations of the studies might have been different had they been influenced by information that he admittedly did not have, such as the knowledge of the reported accident between the two children or knowledge of the baby's birth history. He did not know that Zabeth spent three days in labour and fourteen hours and thirty five minutes in the final stage of delivery, (the trauma of which can can cause subdural bleeding in newborns.) He didn't know that Baby B was severely anaemic at birth. He did not know that the baby's head circumference grew by six centimeters in the three weeks following the fall that the parents reported. He did not know that she received two sets of steroid shots for lung development due to the mother's history of premature delivery (and this can predispose children to fractures or intracranial bleeding.) He did not know that the baby was on DomPeridone for reflux and that at the same time Baby B’s mother was on the same medication for milk production (and that this medication is considered unsafe because it can cause subdural bleeding.) In fact he did not seek a full history as is frequently recommended to radiologists, because he felt it might be inappropriate since the case was already before the court. He knew only that Colbourne suspected it was shaking.

But you see, in Judge Crabtree's court, Dr. Colbourne has not yet been recognized as qualified to state that it was shaking. She can and did state what she discovered upon examinations of Baby B. She was not permitted to state how the injuries were incurred or that they were non accidental injuries. That was ruled as being beyond the scope of her qualification. Dr. Sargent's testimony did not effectively help the MCFD cause because he was interested in telling the truth. In fact, Dr. Sargent suggested that the lengthy delay created by the failure of medical professionals in area hospitals to diagnose and to treat the cause prior to admission to BCCH made definitive determinations sketchy.
Today, more of the truth. Dr. Patrick Barnes in the morning and Zabeth Bayne in the afternoon.

20 comments:

  1. http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/public/pubdocs/bcdocs/371193/committee_compendium.pdf

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  2. Thanks Anon 5:56 AM, that's a good resource requiring a lot of reading time but with which an assessment of performance can be measured.

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  3. Was there not some commentary by Dr. Sargent regarding the remarkable 3-week delay in having scans done, and that anyone attempting to definitively pinpoint a single cause of the internal bleeding would not have been wise to attempt? Imagine, one rogue doctor focusing on an SBS diagnosis when there is a wide assortment of other, far more valid diagnostic choices to choose from.

    It is somewhat surprising that a "full medical history" can be suppressed within medical circles for the reason the matter is "before the courts". This would mean other doctors, or the Children's Hospital authority who might have more than passing interest in the case would be kept in the dark, or could CLAIM to be kept in the dark because of ongoing litigation.

    Does this mean that from the date of removal, other doctors who worked on Bethany have been deprived of a full history? Did Dr. Sargent hear Bethany was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy over a year after CT scans were done? Could he surmise that lack of medical care, a delay of 3-weeks while blood built up in the brain be the cause of all of Bethany's current issues exclusively?

    All the medical reports are published on the internet, nothing is hidden.

    How can it be possible this fellow, Dr. Sargent not be first fully apprised of all of the children's medical history before arriving at court, let alone as a medical referral, and he be so restricted in the amount of information an expert of his calibre would normally expect and would know to request a complete case history? It really does sound like a case of "Since I don't see or hear no evil, I cannot speak no evil."

    It is also an example of one medical professional not wanting to speak out against another, because a complaint can be made to the college of physicians by the offended doctor for breach of ethical conduct.

    Dr. Sargent must be angry at being put in this position. No wonder the other radiologist declined to testify. It would appear that Dr. Sargent is certainly not going to risk his career for Dr. Colbourne's failings.

    It would also seem to indicate this might possibly have been a last ditch effort by Dr. Colbourne to try to use another doctor to save herself, as opposed to the Ministry lawyer plot to add further delay to the proceedings.

    It would appear from reading today's post that Mr. Christie's experience is clearly in full operation here. The job of counsel is to educate the judge, and slash through all the technical jargan to reveal human failings that intentionally or not, subvert the standard of care the child in question was receiving. It is also the job of the defense counsel too all the judge to determine underlying motivations of each party.

    This is a perfect example of exactly how a defense lawyer uses the "did you know..." line of questioning to reinforce in a judges mind what a witness does NOT know, but SHOULD have been aware. This is especially embarrassing to experts to be put in this position, while their handlers are giving them only information that benefits their case, and not the whole picture.

    Further examples on judges commentary on Dr. Sargent's expertise can be found in several Canlii.org judgements.

    What should be clear is that one day is not a great deal of time for a case such as this that is exclusively a medical misdiagnosis, so hopefully Mr. Christie will continue with the "did you know..." theme to cover material there was not enough time to address with Dr. Sargent.

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  4. I see from the link that it appears the "I'm not going to participate in this blog any more" "CW" lives again!

    This is a 164 page PDF that is six years old, and lists "transformation" as an objective since 2001. The focus is on "service delivery."

    Give it a rest, already.

    My kids were diagnosed with PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, for which the Ministry hack, PhD psychologist who assessed them declared that counseling for "children who witness abuse" was an appropriate remedy. The kids got to play in a sandbox in the counsellors room once for my oldest child, four times for the others. The only question they were asked as "do you like it at foster care?" The expected answer was "yes."

    So, four half-hour sessions to fully treat PTSD. Or, as the next PCA psychologist stated, evidence did not exist for a PTSD diagnosis, so it was faulty.

    For this "service" there was a 4 month wait to see the psychologist who would first diagnosed the service, then another 2 months to wait for an "opening" for this "high demand" service, then the kids were moved to another foster home and services promptly canceled because it was inconvenient for the foster parents to drive the kids to the now-distant counselor's office.

    I cannot begin to stress how much of a cruel and expensive joke MCFD represents to the unsuspecting public.

    Read through the document and see the large number of names are present, including people involved with the Gove report.

    In looking for Penile Testing, I noticed the page 107 "Current Provincial Services" that focus on criminal and damaged kids, nothing family oriented or having anything to do with reuniting children with families. In fact, if you do a search, "reunited" shows up once, and it is in the context of "permanency planning", the focus of MCFD generally.

    MCFD tries very hard to systematically eliminate paths for reunification and focuses on permanence with respect to lengthy stays in care. No wonder MCFD was trying so hard to keep my children in care for so long, bribing my oldest with expensive, conditional gifts to convince signing an agreement to stay in care until age 19.

    It is not that difficult to identify the true focus of this document, and therefore, the suspect motives of the individual posting the link.

    Keep posting, CW.

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  5. Ron; first congratulations on the consistently high standard that you maintain. I know only too well the work that you put into this.
    CORE TRAINING. This topic pops up every now and again, but the term may mean many different things to different people. My guess is that the ministry definition is three weeks in the classroom dedicated to learning the different forms that must be filled in and how to access ones email etc.
    Gove mentioned the need for core training and wanted it to include the long-forgotten interministry child abuse handbook and information about foetal alcohol syndrome. Gove also noted that social work schools do not consider that it is their responsibility to train social workers to do child protection work. This causes me to wonder why it has been considered so desirable to hire social workers with bachelor and masters degrees in social work. One has to train them from scratch anyway.
    The best that one could hope for is that they have some concepts of transferrable generic skills, some idea about evidence based practice and some ideas about practice ethics.
    It is naive to think that essential core training can be effectively achieved in a few days or weeks. It takes years to achieve the advanced skills that a good protection worker needs. Workers should be considered to be trainees for at least the first two years of employment.Training should take place at regular intervals, it should be on location, with local mentorship. Training is much more meaningful when the principles can be applied to current cases and illustrated in real life problems solving.
    My experience of training was that one was sent to a conference, where everything was presented by academics who were usually interested in promoting the latest family therapy theories and who had no interest in child protection. Or lectures were delivered by academics,psychologists and psychiatrists.
    How does one find time for training? You give it priority. In my last employment, the pattern was that staff meetings were held for half a day per week. Mostly they were dedicated to nuts and bolts issues of daily life at the clinic. Boring administrative stuff which got dragged out to fill the morning. I simply decided to use the time differently by dedicating every second meeting to planned staff development and I added a whole day every three months to the purpose. This meant that we got in 16 training days per year. One can do a lot in 16 days. No travel, no conference expenses and all staff benefited.
    Here are some of the topics which should be in core training. In my next blog I will give more detail.
    1 Assessment skills. 2. Ethics. 3. Law and evidence. 4.Addiction development and recovery knowledge for the protection worker. 5. Interview and recording skills.6. Psychology and psychiatry. What they can do and not do. 7.The importance of transferrable generic skills. This is just a short list!!

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  6. I don't bookmark the GPS blog link, neither can I ever remember the link. So, what I do is google "ron unruh baynes" and GPS is the first link that appears.

    Today, I clicked the next link down that is always second in the search result, GPS blog #60. This blog links to "Local Pond" at http://langelaars.blogspot.com/ a distant family who links the GPS blog as the first item on the left side of their page. Today's GPS image appears prominently, with a short line of text of the blog.

    On the Local Pond blog, is a wonderful collection of family photos. Loving parents enjoying their children, and publishing these small bright windows into their lives for others to smile at and cause them to think of their own children and their own good times.

    This is what the Ministry has taken away from the Baynes and countless other families. For the Baynes, three years of these types of photos are missing and cannot be restored. I have a similar gap in my children's lives.

    Lets hope at the end of this week The Baynes ordeal will end and their lives will resume as normal.

    Lets hope also that those reading this blog will not forget their children and their neighbours children are at equal risk from over zealous child protection, and speak out against this tyranny when the opportunity presents itself, and not stop until this problem is corrected.

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  7. http://www.examiner.com/x-14537-Albany-CPS-and-Family-Court-Examiner~y2010m8d10-Court-reverses-termination-of-parental-rights-of-woman-who-refused-a-cesarean

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  8. Zabeth and Paul Bayne will get their children back; the truth about MCFD has been exposed.

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  9. Anyone who thinks that Children's Hospitals, and those who work there (however esteemed), are beyond suspicion, should read this:

    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/08/10/goudge-inquiry-forensic-pathology.html?ref=rss

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  10. CORE TRAINING CONTINUED
    The most important things to start with are the generic skills, because they are needed in so many contexts. The basic skills of all social work start with interview and recording. Theoretical knowledge is important. Putting the knowledge into practice is skills. Interviewing skills are complex and they take experience to learn. That is one of the many reasons why hands on mentorship is needed. Experience has many advantages. The experienced social worker is more confident and at ease. This in turn makes the interviewee more relaxed and communicative.
    All interviews should have both purpose and structure. There are many ways in which interviews can take place. Not all interviews will have a controlled office setting and the worker must be adaptive. Some interviews are client initiated and others are not. An interview may be on the doorstep, or even outside a pub. Protection complaints may lead one into strange places. Let us suppose a parent has come to the office by request, because you have received information that a child may be at risk. The purpose of the interview may be to assess the situation further. So the purpose of the interview may be to get more pertinent information. One of the hardest things a young worker has to learn is to be completely open minded. Purge the head of prejudices, assumptions and do not impose your own values on the client. Of course you should retain your own values, but judgement is needed to know what are purely personal values and those which are common community values.
    All interviews need structure, but the structure need not be obvious. All the structure need to be is a knowledge of what needs to be covered. Mostly all this can be found out with the skill of active listening. Naturally the notebook is needed to put down facts like name, address and telephone number, but put it away as soon as possible. Most of the time one just needs to listen while the client talks. One can just nudge the conversation around where it needs to go, using cues only provided by the interviewee.
    Need I mention once more how important integrity is at times like these. Interview skills can be subtly manipulative without integrity. One should always be completely truthful with the interviewee. If they reveal information about risky behaviours, share this with them right away. Remember that a great deal of child welfare work involves dealing with specific behaviours which can be observed and verified. For instance nearly all counselling for addictions follows a behaviourist model Recovery depends on the ability to change specific behaviours. Interviews depend on specific behaviours--the behaviour of the interviewer and the interviewee. They also involve mutual assessment. Core training should teach not only the sort of theoretical sketch that I draw here, but much more. There should be repeated joint inteviews with mentors before letting people do interviews alone in uncomplicated situations. In general, one cannot interview successfully if one fears the client, or if one fears failure. If you make mistakes in interviewing and recognise it, admit and correct immediately. Just as you are assessing the client, they are assessing you and it is important that they can grow to trust you. You may have to take on unpleasant tasks and at these times trust is most important. They may hate you and thatis okay as long as they can trust you.
    I once did a joint interview with a student social worker and I had explained the purpose and structure beforehand. When we debriefed,she thought that I had abandoned the structure. She had missed that everything got covered, just by using active listening skills and the structure was tight. Of course the same principles apply to recording. Recording must have purpose structure and focus. Clarity of writing is also a skill to be developed over time with good mentorship. Next time I want to continue with law and evidence.

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  11. We are all rooting for you, Paul and Zabeth!

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  12. MORE JUSTICE FOR THE VICTIMS OF CHARLES SMITH, former highly esteemed pediatric forensic pathologist:

    Ontario will offer payments of up to $250,000 for each person whose life was directly affected by Dr. Charles Smith's flawed pediatric forensic pathology.

    The decision announced Tuesday comes almost two years after the Goudge inquiry's report on 45 criminally suspicious children's deaths in which Smith had done, or consulted on, the autopsies.

    Smith worked at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, but functioned under the Chief Coroner's Office from 1991 to 2001.

    'It is the right thing to do.'—Chris Bentley, Ontario attorney general

    Commissioner Stephen Goudge's report found that in 20 instances in those 10 years, Smith made mistakes leading to dubious conclusions of criminal wrongdoing. Thirteen of those cases resulted in criminal convictions.

    "The flawed work of Dr. Charles Smith has deeply affected the lives of many people in Ontario," Attorney General Chris Bentley said Tuesday. "Today we are moving forward with payments to recognize the impact of that experience."

    "It is the right thing to do," he said.

    Individuals who were wrongly accused themselves will be entitled to a maximum of $250,000 each as a "recognition payment." A child of someone wrongfully accused who was removed from the family home as a result is entitled to up to $25,000.



    Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/08/10/goudge-inquiry-forensic-pathology.html#ixzz0wFkrPAkC


    There will also be Justice in the Bayne's case. They will have their children returned, and they will be compensated - not this month or next - but someday they will get some kind of compensation. It will never pay for the harm they have suffered, but it will help to bring this injustice to light, and it will have some effect in terms of preventing this injustice in the future.

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  13. Years after a doctor (Charles Smith) has ruined lives, finally some (more) recognition of the damage that incompetent, negligent, or malicious diagnoses can do:

    "Still, one victim contacted is happy with the compensation plan. Maurice Gagnon, of Sudbury, spent his $100,000 retirement fund to clear the name of his daughter, Lianne Thibeault, after she came under suspicion for the 1995 death of her 11-month-old son Nicholas.

    Nicholas went into distress after hitting his head, but Smith wrongly determined the baby had suffered a “non-accidental” blow. While there was never enough evidence to charge Thibeault, child welfare authorities temporarily seized custody of her second child.

    Gagnon said he just wants to close the book on this chapter of his life: “It takes too much God damned energy to stay mad at these people.”

    He said he feels justice has been done because Smith, former chief coroner James Young and former deputy coroner Jim Cairns “will never work again. Nobody else will be affected by these people.”

    The provincial government has announced compensation for victims of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith of up to $250,000 each.

    But Attorney General Chris Bentley acknowledged that some victims are likely entitled to more and can still launch civil actions against the provincial government.

    “This is our way of providing recognition for some of the hurt, some of the pain, and some of the anguish of those affected by flawed pediatric forensic pathology,” he told a news conference today.

    Mistakes made by Smith and his bosses in the coroner’s office led to a number of wrongful convictions and prosecutions. Parents and caregivers were jailed for as long as 12 years. In some cases, siblings of dead children were removed from the custody of their parents and placed in foster care or put up for adoption."

    http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/846342--province-to-compensate-victims-of-dr-charles-smith

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  14. To: Ray Ferris,

    You seem to be writing about, and putting a lot of emphasis on, training. But that doesn't seem to be the problem here. It's the quality of the people, not their training. If you put a truly good, and intelligent, person in the position of case worker, they wouldn't need years of training to tell them simple things.

    But then again, I suspect that a truly good and intelligent person would never want to work for MCFD. The basic premise - that the government knows best, and is qualified to act as a parent, is deeply flawed. Government can't even balance a budget. We have premiers who get busted for driving drunk. We have Prime Ministers involved in scandals. We have RCMP essentially murdering innocent victims. Why on earth would anyone think that we should give the government this much power.

    Unless there is proof of abuse, leave families alone. How insane to act on the possibility of future risk. How Orwellian, to rip a child from his or her family, because a parent MIGHT harm him or her. Child protection does much, much more harm than good. The money that is wasted would be better spent helping families, instead of ripping them apart.

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  15. Anon 10:00am - that wasn't me who posted the link. I've always noted my "name" (CW) on every posting I have made. Your experience is a tragedy. That must have been more than difficult to share it.

    I read this blog with interest, but no longer participate.

    Not the "silent treatment" to you, Ron, just not participating, kind sir (Ron).

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  16. CW, good to hear from you again, if only for clarification. Thanks for continuing to follow the storyline. I still wish you would reconsider but I know that your reception here has been rather rough whenever you spoke and regardless of what you expressed.

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  17. I used to read with interest at the different sides and the issues regarding both sides. Now this blog is totally pro Bayne (even though nobody can predict what the ruling will be) and pro "they took my kids for no reason" Please people! The rest of us that read this shake our heads. There are always two sides but not here!! You are all right, you just keep believing that! The rest of us that may have a different opinion are of course..... wrong!
    Good luck Bayne kids, you certainly need it!

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  18. WELL ANON 10:17 PM - you didn't used to read much. My posts on this Blog have always been pro Bayne. What do you think the title of each post signifies? If you are speaking of two sides to issues evident among comments, they customarily both get a hearing and still do. As to two sides of the Bayne case, this blog will remain a convinced pro-Bayne location.

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  19. Anonymous at 10:17,

    You got your "side" in, so what are you complaining about? It's not like you've been censored, is it now?

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  20. TO ANON AT: August 10, 2010 10:17 PM

    Yes, the Bayne kids need good luck alright - but not because of their parents, that's for sure. They need good luck because they, and their parents, are up against the most corrupt system imaginable. Actually, it's not really imaginable, since the vast majority of people can't imagine that a gov't entity could be so incredibly corrupt.

    But of course since you probably work for them, or have a wife, or close relative that works for them, either directly or as a "service provider," you know all about the corruption.

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