RFK's Son Arrested in Maternity Unit (newborn, average, parents, husband)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In my experience, hospitals don't keep new babies or their mothers a nano-second longer than they have to. If the hospital decided that this baby needed a little more time in the hospital, the decision was made for medical reasons, not to give the new dad a hard time. For insurance purposes, alone, it was dumb for this guy to try to pull a stunt like this.
Suppose he had succeeded in walking out of that hospital before the baby was officially discharged and the baby came down with pneumonia, had to be rushed back to the hospital and placed in the NICU. Who is going to pay that bill?
Hospitals have those rules in place to protect the baby more than the 'rights' of a parent. Not only do they need to ensure that no unauthorized person takes a baby, but they also need to make sure the person has the CORRECT baby. That's why they have protocols in place, and yes, everyone, including a Kennedy, should have to follow the proper protocol.
At the hospitals where my girls were born, the babies wore monitors that would sounds an alarm if someone - anyone - tried to take the baby past a certain point in the maternity ward. They also had an ID number, and the mother (and father, if the mother said it was okay) wore a matching one. They checked and double checked to make sure the baby and parent ID matched before handing the baby over. I'm glad they did, because I surely would have been upset if they had handed my daughter to the wrong person.
I think the nurses were simply doing their jobs. I think he had a sense of entitlement about what he could or could not do and he should have been appreciative of the nurses who were there to protect the welfare of the child. Like it or not we are a society of rules and regulations which mostly are designed to protect the majority. and yes the tape shows at least 1 nurse down on the floor in the middle of the hall. Just because they have hired lawyers does not mean they set him up to get money out of him.
If newborns are required to stay in the hospital til discharged, then the hospital should be eating the cost of keeping the kid there. You want responsibility for my kid? Take it then. And take financial responsibility too. When you tell me I'm allowed to remove my own child from your property, I will take any subsequent responsibility, financial and otherwise. And if my child is breastfeeding on demand and requires me to stay in the hospital with her, you can pay MY hospital bills while I'm there too. Me + Kid = One Unit. You kidnap my kid, then you kidnap me too. And cover the costs of both.
I would be ALL over that if someone tried to tell me I wasn't -allowed- to bring my own healthy newborn child out of a building to get some fresh air. I'd demand that they set us both up in a suite with room service and a mani-pedi and daily massages for mommy and child. And that food better be edible or I'll bring in my own personal chef and they can foot the bill for that too.
Or - they can step aside and allow me to bring -my- child out of their building for some fresh air.
It used to be, hospitals had yards and screened solariums where patients could enjoy fresh air. Hell, they used to be able to smoke in the yards and solariums too. Yes, the hospital needs to keep track of who's there and who isn't and the whereabouts of each patient at all times. I get that. And Kennedy should've signed the baby out for 20 minutes, if that's all he wanted to do. But it sounds like the hospital had a policy forbidding even that.
Ridiculous policy. Kennedy should definitely fight it, but he seems to have gone about it in the wrong way.
I agree with your post, but i would like to tell you and someone else mentioned it to. You cant check babies out of the maternity ward. They cant go within 20 feet of the door until they discharge them. The lo-jack they put on them doesnt come off until they go home. There is no checking out. The hospital controls what exposure you have to your child in the hospital. Its all overstepping if you ask me.
And to the other poster, if he had taken him out and the kid got pnumonia who would have paid for it? His insurance. He isnt on medicaid. Its not state healthcare and the hospital isnt footing the bill. They keep babies until the mother gets discharged. If she had a vaginal delivery it is generally 48 hrs. If she had a c-section then 72 hrs. But dont say they kick the people out as soon as they can because a lot of drs will tell you they dont need to be there that long. Under normal circumstances a mother and child who is healthy and had a normal delivery could go home within hours. But there are to many people suing hospitals for things hospitals have no control over like sick babies and ill mothers that the hospital treats the maternity ward like a prison ward and noone comes or goes without dr permission. The hospital has final say on my child when there is nothing wrong with him, I should have final say. If my child is healthy I should be able to say we are going home. But you cant. They will arrest you. Seriously? And the mother was involved as so far as to say that the hospital was in the wrong.
I agree with your post, but i would like to tell you and someone else mentioned it to. You cant check babies out of the maternity ward. They cant go within 20 feet of the door until they discharge them. The lo-jack they put on them doesnt come off until they go home. There is no checking out. The hospital controls what exposure you have to your child in the hospital. Its all overstepping if you ask me.
And to the other poster, if he had taken him out and the kid got pnumonia who would have paid for it? His insurance. He isnt on medicaid. Its not state healthcare and the hospital isnt footing the bill. They keep babies until the mother gets discharged. If she had a vaginal delivery it is generally 48 hrs. If she had a c-section then 72 hrs. But dont say they kick the people out as soon as they can because a lot of drs will tell you they dont need to be there that long. Under normal circumstances a mother and child who is healthy and had a normal delivery could go home within hours. But there are to many people suing hospitals for things hospitals have no control over like sick babies and ill mothers that the hospital treats the maternity ward like a prison ward and noone comes or goes without dr permission. The hospital has final say on my child when there is nothing wrong with him, I should have final say. If my child is healthy I should be able to say we are going home. But you cant. They will arrest you. Seriously? And the mother was involved as so far as to say that the hospital was in the wrong.
It is definitely overstepping. Mark my words, the nurses will claim injuries, seeking a huge payoff. It's a setup
That is correct. Insurance wants you out of there pronto.
I just dont get how they get to the conclusion of how long they "have to". They shouldnt "have to" keep me any longer than I want to be there, barring no additional health issues, but I cant just leave....how can they just keep me there.
I just dont get how they get to the conclusion of how long they "have to". They shouldnt "have to" keep me any longer than I want to be there, barring no additional health issues, but I cant just leave....how can they just keep me there.
I don't know the particulars of this story, so I'm not speculating on that. Like nearly every media story about celebrities, it's probably half truth plus a lot of sensationalism and spin. I honestly don't give a bent nickel that Robert Kennedy's kid was not able to take his baby outside without hospital approval. Get back inside and hire a midwife next time, fool.
As to your question, I think you can leave whenever you want, even if it's Against Medical Advice, but they have written policies about how and to whom they will release babies from their wards. A patient should be educated about those rules.
Well why did the baby need to stay? I mean obviously you cant take a baby who is still lo-jacked from the hospital but why were they making the baby stay? 2 days old seems (and is in most cases) old enough to go home. So what was the problem? Because they had not decided to let him leave yet. The kid was probably getting discharged in the morning anyway. And yes it is the hospitals responsibility to protect the infant from being kidnapped, but this was his father. And yes they have a responsibility to ptotect the child if leaving would have endangered him but according to the article he was a healthy infant who was 2 days old. He was absolutely out of line hitting or even touching a nurse, which he should have to answer for in court but I dont agree with the child endangerment charges, as I dont believe their was a danger at all.
They didn't know he was the father. When hospital personnel see a person, any person, carrying a baby off the maternity unit, they sure as heck better jump into action! they did exactly the right thing. Hospitals even have drills to practice what to do if someone tries to kidnap a baby from a hospital. It has zero to do with the baby being healthy, and probably old enough to be discharged. It has to do with the possibility that he was not the dad, and was trying to take the baby.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
