PROUD MARY KEEPS ON BURNING/ Part 378 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

PROUD MARY KEEPS ON BURNING
Mary Polak has been treated fairly on my blog. I report what is to be reported. I have not taken unkind shots at her. Perhaps I am like one hundred other journalists who are politically polite. Not so Alex G. Tsakumis, an insider, politically savvy writer, whose blog is easily the most straight-shooting prose you will find in cyberspace. So if you want another good way to fill five minutes of every day, check out his Rebel with a Cause site.

Some days ago, when Bill Bennet was getting axed by his Liberal Caucus amigos, Alex wrote a post. Mary Polak had been tiptoeing to explain the Cultus Lake incident in which for nine days a disabled girl was stuck with her dead mother's body. Straight-shooting means that sometimes the target gets wounded or dead. Tsakumis' target was proud Mary and the article was entitled, 'Bill Bennett Booted but Mary Polak Rewarded?! Democracy in B.C. Politics–Non-Existent.'.

I have pasted the article in its entirety here because I am very concerned about the governance of our province, and particularly now as it relates to the welfare of children and their families.

“Think about this. On all the news programs and in the papers this morning, and for the last week, we are consumed with the story of a 14 year-old Down syndrome girl, who for nine days, soaked in her own urine and excrement, was trying to nurse back to life her mother’s rotting corpse.

But this is apparently of no interest to presumptive Premier Kevin Falcon, or contender Rich Coleman, or dreamer George Abbott and the deeply delusional, ‘Basi-Virk’ excuse pinch-hitter Mike DeJong. NOT ONE of them stood up in Cabinet today and demanded Children and Families Minister Mary Polak be immediately fired.

Why should Proud Mary, Gordon Campbell’s chief loyalist in caucus be fired?

Read on.

After the young girl’s two courageous brothers begged the Ministry of Children and Families to intervene two months ago and extract the girl from her alcoholic and drug addicted mother, the Ministry, in turn, left the child in a definitively at-risk position, where if she had not been discovered when she was, within two days, she too would have perished.

In subsequent interviews, Minister Polak, in what I can charitably describe as a woman suffering from the most severe case of PMS in the history of the menstrual cycle, mouth frothing with indignation, high-gloss manicured claws growing, proceeded to provide the most disgusting display of media deflection and excuse-peddling I’ve seen in years–angry, defiant and nasty. Sound familiar?

But Polak’s Campbell-fueled fib factory is rewarded with the crown for winning ‘Survivor of the Dimmest’. Not a single Cabinet member went after her for such a despicable display. Not one of them cares about the fact that Judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, MCFD watchdog, has written a letter to the Minister complaining that the incident with the Prentice family was not only NOT reported to her, but never even booked by the Ministry.

That was a week ago.

No response from Deputy Minister Lesley DuToit (a hand-picked Campbellite) or Minister Polak herself whose is content to gloriously writhe under the cover of the Campbell tartan.

She doesn’t care. She fabricates conditions upon which this near double tragedy unfurled. She takes a position most offside of an honest word.

And yet Bill Bennett is jettisoned by his Cabinet colleagues for telling the truth. Mind, if Bennett felt the throne was occupied by the wrong royal, what was he doing sitting at the round table for as long as he did?

Only in Gordon Campbell’s universe do you survive for being a rube or a charlatan. If you tell the truth, they rip the phone from your hands and send a disgraced Cabinet member to display your head on a stick.

While Mary sits, laughing…”

Clearly Alex doesn't want to sit with her to fix things. He merely thinks she and others deserve to be gone.
Post title suggested by the song Proud Mary, written by John Fogerty and made famous by Credence Clearwater Revival and by Tina Turner, and the Post theme derived from Mary Polak, Minister of Children, B.C.

MEDICAL HISTORY PART 3 of 3 / Part 235 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Part 3 of 3

• Providing it in several parts, this will be as definitive a medical history on the Bayne infant as you will read online.
• At the start of the MCFD hearing for a continuing care order for all three Bayne children, Judge Tom Crabtree in his wisdom ruled that there would be no ban on information presented during the court proceedings. The medical reports are a component of the submissions presented under cross examination. I have access to this information. Medical testimonies have been heard although not all of them have been ruled as admissible by Judge Crabtree.
• This is what I have read. I have chosen not to do a narrative but to cite the medical data factually. I RESTATE OR CAPITALIZE A FEW KEY OBSERVATIONS.

Dr. Poskitt / MR: Requested by Dr. David Cochrane, an MR Head Sedation was conducted by the department of radiology at BC Children's Hospital and Dr. Ken Poskitt on October 19, 2007. The impression given was focal injury to the left occipital lobe with associated bilateral subdural fluid collections of increased signal intensity represented protein and old blood. The injury is remote at least three weeks of age or older. Given the size of the extra-axial fluid collections, Dr. Poskitt suspected that the head had been crossing percentiles for a prolonged period of time and head circumference measurements would provide an estimated time of origin for the injury. There was evidence of trauma however mechanism injury was not obvious from MR examination.

Dr. Degruchy / Chest: On October 19, 2007 at Dr. Cochrane's request a Port Ward Chest was performed by the department of radiology at BC Children's Hospital and Dr. Suzanne Degruchy. She noted that there was hazy increased opacity in both lungs which may reflect pulmonary edema. Pleural spaces were clear and the bony thorax was unremarkable. Atelectasis/ hemorrhage was though unlikely.

Child Removal: October 22, 2007 was D-Day for the Baynes, not Deliverance but Desolation. All three children were removed from Paul and Zabeth.

Dr. Hess / Head Ultrasound: October 22, 2007 an Ultrasound Head exam was done at the department of radiology at BC Children's Hospital and Dr. Thomas Hess, finding that there was significant improvement in the size of the bilateral extra-axial collections when compared with the findings from the October 19, 2007 a pre-shunt insertion MRI and the outside cranial ultrasound done in Chilliwack.

Dr Hess / CT Head: On October 23, 2007 at the request of Dr. Colbourne, with reference to a skeletal survey performed on October 19th, 2007 and the outside CT head scan done at Chilliwack General Hospital on October 18, 2007, a NM Bone Flow test was conducted by Dr. Thomas Hess. Dr. Hess understood that the two month old infant with bilateral subdural hematomas and a right parietal skull fracture was under investigation for NAI (Non-accidental injury). The test result was focal increased activity within the left proximal femur which corresponded with bone injury visualized on the recent skeletal survey.

Dr. Culham / Chest, Limbs: On October 31, 2007 at Dr. Colbourne's request the Department of Radiology at BCCH and Dr. Gordon Culham did examinations of the chest, the right elbow and the left femur of the infant Baby B. No bony injury appeared in the chest examination with nothing to suggest new bone formation suggesting costochondral fractures. THE LATERAL VIEW OF THE RIGHT ELBOW SHOWS WHAT APPEARS AS SUBPERIOSTAL NEW BONE BUT IS IN FACT CORTICAL TUNNELLING BECAUSE THERE IS NO NEW BONE ON THE FRONTAL VIEW. WITH THE LEFT FEMUR THERE IS A HEALING FRACTURE AT THE PROXIMAL END OF THE FEMUR INVOLVING THE MEDIAL CORNER AND THE FRACTURE IS HEALING BY ENDOSTEAL SCLEROSIS.

Sorial report: As causes for her distress were sought, the doctor's note MENTIONS THE BROTHER FALLING ON HER a few days earlier but that she had not cried and was okay after that trauma. The parents reported this event.
Dr. Gardiner wrote a letter to Dr. Ebesh dated January 6, 2009 following a routine examination of Baby B who was brought to the appointment by her social worker because the girl is in foster care as her note indicates “after a presumed non-accidental injury.” She indicates that she also last saw Baby B in April 2008 when her eyes looked normal and there were no concerns with respect to her vision. Dr. Gardiner also makes reference to Dr. Matsuba seeing her on this same January 6th appointment and saying that her vision is good. Dr. Gardiner's examination.

There are many more medical follow-up appointments and reports during the past year and one half which are not part of this mini-series the purpose of which was to recount the initial medical observations and findings, relative to the suspicions, the child removal, the risk assessment and the current continuing care order by MCFD.

Many of you are interested in her progress so regarding Baby B's current health status, I relate here the observations of her birth parents.

1. Social workers have testified that Baby B must wear braces. The Baynes have never seen these on her. She wears sole inserts to correct her arch. She is observed walking better without the inserts.
2. Baby B has recently been discharged from the Sunny Hill Vision Program as her vision is "the low side of normal". 
3. Baby B is developmentally behind in her speech and will need speech therapy. 
4. Baby B understands everything one says to her and responds accordingly. She feeds herself, is now potty training. She loves to read, colour, play ball, dance, sing and clap.
5. The Ministry has made an affidavit statement that she has cerebral palsy. No such medical disclosure to validate this has been submitted to the Baynes or to the court.