The Tampa Tribune has been reporting (thanks to Chaina Turna for the tip) on the case of 22 year old Parita Patel who has been visiting the U.S. and is reportedly staying with some friends (while her husband and family remain in India).
Tears streamed down her face, a few falling to her lime green punjabi before she could wipe them away. Her friends tried to comfort her, patting her back and whispering condolences in Gujarati outside the courtroom at the 13th Judicial Circuit Court.
Parita Patel, 22, just wanted her baby daughter. And she thought Friday she’d walk out holding little Krinna in her arms. She just had to get past a dependency hearing.
A visit with Krinna on Monday, arranged at a Florida Department of Children and Families office, may have given her false hope.
“I have not been sleeping,” she said. “I say to myself, `Tomorrow my baby may come with me.’ I wonder why this situation?”
In a matter of minutes, the hearing was over. Krinna wasn’t there. They weren’t going home together.
So what’s up? Why did the 13th order her baby into the system? Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) accused her of putting her baby in harms way.
A visitor from India, Patel gave birth prematurely on May 13 at Tampa General Hospital. Her 4 1/2 pound baby was in the neonatal unit for 18 days, with Patel staying close by at the Ronald McDonald House.
A caseworker asked her whether she had a home here. A job. Any way to support herself.
Patel said no to all.
DCF took the baby into foster care on May 31, accusing her in court of “prospective neglect” and her husband of abandonment.
But what the caseworker didn’t understand, Patel and her supporters said, is she is staying with friends who are giving her shelter, food to eat and everything she’d need to care for the baby. Her home and husband, Vikesh, are back in India.
…DCF wrote in court documents Patel isn’t a fit parent - she “found out she was pregnant on or about October 2004 but failed to have any prenatal care” and ignored “referrals to local homeless shelters.”
Going only on the details reported, this seems like a pretty ridiculous overreach by DCF. “Failed to have prenatal care?” Are you kidding me? Given the sad state of the healthcare system in this country, babies would be seized every few seconds if this was the criteria. You have to put this into context by remembering that the Florida DCF (and Jeb Bush) have been under assault for years because of incompetence and negligence in child services and foster care related matters (see here and here and here). The following is an excerpt from the last of these links:
When candidate [Jeb] Bush was running for Governor, he made a promise to fix the state’s child welfare agency. Bush had criticized Gov. Lawton Chiles’ handling of the department he would leave no child behind. But that’s exactly what happened. His administration headed by his appointee lost track of Rilya Wilson. He said, “I am the person…to provide a solution. That is my responsibility and I accept that.” So what does that really mean to him? Not a thing. It’s just something he says to appear to be responsible. Because to Jeb Bush, all that matters is what things appear to be like, not how things really are. So what does he say now - now that he’s failed miserably ? “In an imperfect world, with imperfect parents…”, Jeb said that we can’t blame his administration for these failures, now he says that government can’t do everything.
Around May 5, 2002, The Miami Herald has revealed that DCF paid a private company, the Pinellas County-based Florida Task Force for the Protection of Abused and Neglected Children, $4.8 million to investigate and close unresolved child abuse reports. The company was abruptly fired in March for poor performance.
The Tribune article has one quote in particular that got me thinking:
“This must be the first Indian baby taken into foster care,” translator Malti Pandya said Friday. “We are a big and supportive community.”
I wonder if that is really true.
