Critics Warn On Pregnant Mother Alerts

[Alison J Stevens]

Critics Warn On Pregnant Mother Alerts
Alerts are being placed on the health files of pregnant women whose unborn children are deemed at risk of abuse – a move critics say could stigmatise and wrongly label parents. The Sunday Star-Times has learned that health professionals can now place flags on the national medical warning system for children who have been treated for abuse – but also for pregnant women deemed “vulnerable”. The system attaches the alert directly to an individual’s health index number, so that if they are assessed at hospitals or medical centres throughout the country, medical staff will know their history. An alert stays in place until a child turns 17, and parents may not always be told about them. Siblings of an abused child can also have alerts placed on their files without a medical assessment. Former health and disability commissioner Robyn Stent, whose stepdaughter was wrongly suspected of abuse at Starship hospital’s child protection unit, says she does not trust medical professionals to make the right calls around the alerts. In her stepdaughter’s case, a note referring to suspected abuse was never removed from the file. “These are the people who insist on treating parents as criminal suspects in all cases where abuse is `possible’, and who based their abuse suspicions in our family’s case on a non-existent report,” Stent said. “We would not trust them with the power to denounce families to the medical world as likely abusers, unless they have evidence which satisfies a court.” The New Zealand College of Midwives has also expressed concern about the alert system. Any alert system raised issues of privacy, confidentiality and human rights.
Tony Wall, Sunday Star Times, New Zealand
Related Links:
* The Consensus Report
Family Law Reform
* David Southall – A Very Dangerous Doctor
Lisa Blakemore Brown, Psychologist

Value-perceived child abuse.