A Florida family is facing off against a hospital in court, saying staff callously dismissed a teenage girl’s debilitating condition and falsely claimed the mother was making it up.
According to the complaint from Pinellas County, the mother, Beata Kowalski, died by suicide because of the turmoil that the hospital created. State authorities had had her daughter in the custody of the hospital for more than three months.
“Defendants imprisoned Maya at [Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg] with no legal justification,” the lawsuit said.
Beata’s widower, Jack Kowalski, filed the lawsuit. The complaint said their daughter, Maya Kowalski, showed signs of a debilitating condition called complex regional pain syndrome since 2015 when she was 9.
In this condition, the body misinterprets even light touches as excruciating pain, resulting in symptoms such as stiffness, spasms, and limited mobility. The complaint used words like “burning, bone-crushing, shooting and stabbing” to describe the sensation.
Eventually, specialists recommended Maya take ketamine as treatment.
Ketamine is a clinically accepted form of treatment that blocks pain receptors and allows the patient’s body to revise the sensitization process, the complaint said.
It was successful, though she would continue to experience flare-ups of her symptoms.
According to the complaint, it was after one such flare-up in October 2016 that her parents took her to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.
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