Child Protective Services remove child denied cancer treatment
Published: June 12, 2005
Medical tests on Friday showed that cancer had returned to a 12-year-old girl whose parents were in court to fight radiation treatment because they believed her illness was in remission.
Texas Child Protective Services removed the girl and her siblings from the home of their parents, Michele and Edward Wernecke, last week after doctors said discontinued treatment could be life-threatening. Katie was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease in January.
The parents had insisted the four rounds of chemotherapy Katie received killed the cancer and that the recommended radiation therapy would only harm a healthy girl.
But Friday’s results, “changes everything,” said Daniel Horne, an attorney for the parents. The state attorneys only received the test results shortly before the hearing.
“The Werneckes have never said that they would deny medical treatment to their daughter if she was ill and getting worse,” Horne told state juvenile court Judge Carl Lewis.
The new tests took the parents and their attorneys by surprise after they were revealed by state attorneys during the hearing that was supposed to determine whether treatment for Katie was necessary in the days leading up to a custody hearing.
But the judge called off next week’s scheduled custody hearing unless family attorneys could present evidence that refuted the test results.
Lewis ordered that the treatment begin as soon as possible and that Katie remain in state custody.
The state presented three doctors’ findings that radiation treatment was necessary.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: