This Documentary Exposes How Hospitals Often Wrongly Accuse Parents of Child Abuse
For the Kowalski family, they faced unimaginable trauma and heartbreak after both parents were wrongly accused of abusing their daughter Maya who suffered from CRPS. After the accusation, Maya was held by state custody and taken from her parents for several months.
Maya Kowalski in ‘Take Care of Maya’ / Netflix
For most parents and families, hospitals and doctors are places they go to to seek help and attention when they’re sick. These institutions are supposed to be safe spaces and provide those under their care with ethical medical attention. While this is true in many cases, it wasn’t for Maya Kowalski and her family. In Netflix’s latest documentary “Take Care of Maya,” the films tells the heartbreaking story of how hospitals and doctors tore apart Maya’s family and left unimaginable traumatic scars on every member of her family.
Maya started experiencing extreme pain as young child, form her skin feeling like it was burning constantly, to feeling pain in her stomach. Her parents, who are portrayed and described as loving and caring parents, did everything they could to help their daughter. They took her to countless doctors, hospitals, gave her numerous medications, but could not find an answer for her condition. Doctor after doctor, no one knew what was wrong with her.
Thankfully, one doctor (Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick) identified her condition as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (also known as CRPS) and prescribed her new medication and suggested a four day coma to be completed in Monterrey Mexico. These treatments and the coma greatly helped Maya and things were finally looking up for her and her family. She was out of the hospital and no longer feeling as intense pain.
However, just as things were looking better, Maya relapsed. This time, her parents took her to the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Tampa Florida. After her parents spoke with doctors, the medical staff and care team started accusing the parents of child abuse. While they possessed no evidence or clear reasons behind how the abuse was happening, the accusation was still taken to Child Protective Services. After Maya’s parents Jack and Beata Kowalski were accused, they were not allowed visits with their daughter and only had limited contact with her over the phone. This abrupt change not only isolated the parents from their daughter, but kept Maya from seeing or interacting with anyone from outside the hospital. She was confined to her hospital bed and isolated from family, friends, and school.
For three months.
During this time, Maya’s parents, especially Beata, made every attempt possible to contact her daughter and get her back. Phone call after phone call, she did everything in her power retrieve her daughter. Beata’s anger, frustration, and sadness continued to build as the hospital and state continued to deny her from seeing her daughter in person. After several weeks, Beata made a plea to a judge simply asking if she could give her daughter a hug. The judge denied the hug from happening and continued denying Beata contact with Maya for the foreseeable future. This appeared as the mother’s breaking point, as shortly after that court hearing, Beata took her life, all while Maya continued to be held captive by the state.
This heartbreaking event traumatized both Beata’s husband and their son Kyle, as they were both home when the incident happened. Maya was of course deeply impacted by this as she and her mom held a very close bond. Before Beata’s death, Maya would tell her mom on phone calls just how much she loved her and how she prayed for her every day. This level of affection from a young child should be enough proof for anyone that she was not a victim of abuse. Another difficult point to notice about this film was how Maya was often, if not always ignored by the medical staff and government officials in terms of how she felt. No one listened to her when she had pain, and she even stated some nurses denied she even had CRPS in the first place. Maya’s feelings of helplessness and trauma she experienced in the hospital led to her life being forever changed and gain the desire of never wanting to enter a hospital again.
The Kowalski’s story unveils yet another major flaw in an American system. The healthcare and hospital system should be one that places the health of the patient first, but this story clearly shows a distinct priority. The lack of thorough investigation on Maya’s parents led to a false accusation towards her parents which led to the death of her mother, and irreversible emotional trauma and all members of the family. Further, the treatment the hospital was giving Maya wasn’t even helping her, as she described feeling more in pain as time went on. This type of outcome is someone so horrific and sad, it should not even be real. The treatment of the hospital towards Maya and her family is simply unethical and unbearable to hear. Not only this, but the film points out how this is a common obstacle families face. After a reporter heard and published a story on the Kowalski’s, more families and parents began to come forward about how a similar thing happened to them. Some parents were placed in jail for days or even years at a time, others were forced to give up their children for foster care, and one family almost had to file for bankruptcy.
The only thing these families wanted was proper treatment for their children who were suffering. Instead of receiving the help they wanted, their families and reputation were unfairly ruined and the impact the experience left on them is irreversible.
This film shocks audiences by telling a story so heartbreaking and telling of the true healthcare system, it is an essential watch to understand a topic that is hardly addressed. Personally, I had no idea this problem was happening and that so many families were victims of false accusations, so after watching this film I’m grateful I’m now more aware and informed on this topic. The filmmakers do a wonderful job of telling the story in a very personable and truthful way by using actual phone calls, documents, and recordings of the entire journey the Kowalski family had to go through. The film also uses numerous other perspectives of families in similar situations to underscore how this problem is so much bigger than just Maya and her family. It’s a problem affecting hundreds of families across the country, and is an unjust pattern that needs to be stopped.
While the story and documentary is painful to process, the storytellers manage to sprinkle in a glimpse of hope into the final moments of the film. Maya is shown to be an incredibly strong person despite everything she’s gone through, but her willingness to continue to fight for her mother and work to gain justice for her is inspiring. Despite her hardships, she’s fought to keep her mother’s memory alive and spoken out about her experience to others. By the end of the film, the audience learns the Kowalski’s are still trying to sue the hospital over emotional distress inflicted on the family. They are still currently fighting this battle and have a court date set for September of this year.
After watching this film, I feel grateful to the Kowalski’s for sharing their story but most of all angry and frustrated over a system that is so broken. It’s shouldn’t be the institutions meant to help and protect their patients the one that ends up causing more damage in the long run. This film does a great job of exposing this major flaw in the system and uses Maya and her story as a poignant example of the trauma and pain the system inflicts on those they affect.
I highly recommend watching this documentary as even though it’s a painful watch, it’s incredibly informative and most importantly, eye-opening to yet another injustice no one seems to be discussing.