Testimonials

---

I am the mother of Jeremiah who sadly enough died because I was not able to care for him at home without assistance. I am also an insulin dependent diabetic.

Jeremiah was born prematurely, and remained in the intensive care nursery at Childrens' Hospital Oakland, (CHO) for two months before he was discharged home. At first he was doing well but after a few months he started to have feeding problems. For that he had a gastrostorny to put in and came back home. His problems did not get any better and for the next three years I was back-and-forth just about every week in the emergency room with my son experiencing breathing difficulties.

Meanwhile I repeatedly asked the staff at Children's Hospital (nurses and social workers) for assistance. I was also regularly talking with Maria Garcia-Puig, his case worker at the Regional Center of the East Bay (RCEB), who would relate to me that Diana Isola RN, for RCEB, could not locate a community care facility nearby that will care for Jeremiah.

She told over and over again .by many nurses including Norma Pinnic, RN! discharge planner and social workers including Purita Mesa, MSW all working for CHO that there was no community facility nearby to care for Jeremiah. Upon advice from his case management team I agreed for him to have a tonsillectomy. Then they though he had GI problems and placed a gastrostomy tube in. When that too did not work they performed a tracheotomy. That seemed to create more problems than relief.

In an effort not lose custody over my son or to keep them from placing Jeremiah in homes as far away as San Jose and Los Angeles, and despite my own illness, I tried to learn how to tube feed my child, suction him, as he needed to be suction around the clock and more. When they required me to designate my relief caretakers and I could not count on my adult extended family members, out of desperation, I encouraged my daughters to step in and the nurses at CHO were actually training my 10 year old and 14 year-old daughters these complicated nursing care procedures.

In the end I still lost the custody battle and Jeremiah was placed in sub-acute hospital in San Jose against my will. It was a very difficult for me to visit my son in San Jose, and the few times that I could make it over I felt that my son was poorly cared for. I had walked in one day while his nurse was screaming at him as if he were an adult. Another time I called to ask how my son was doing and the nurse answered, "Oh he is fine, after I slapped him around a couple of times". I reported this to his worker Garcia-Puig but she told me, there was no other community care facility to move him to. My son died at Saratoga sub-acute hospital.

Last year I learned that there was a qualified and licensed Intermediate Care Facility just 30 minutes away from my home in Richmond, but that the discharge planners at Children's Hospital and the nurses and caseworkers of RCEB, for some unexplained reason had boycotted and refused to place patients in that facility, in an effort to drive them out of business.

I know that no one can save my son now, but I am hoping that by speaking out, another mother does not have to experience the pain and agony I am still feeling.

---

I am the father of four who lost my only son in 1996. Devante was born in 1992 with birth defects, due to the drug use of my wife that I was not aware of. My wife and I went through training and were encouraged to take care of Devante at home.

I was and I am still the full-time bread earner of the family and had to rely on my then wife to care for Devante during the day.

It turned out that my wife had not kicked her drug habit and my son was neglected during the day; I had to play catch up with his care and feedings after I return home from work.

I asked his social worker Sarah Finnegan with the Regional Center of the East Bay (RCEB) and social workers and nurses at Children's Hospital Oakland (CHO) for assistance to place him in an extended care facility but for at least three years I was told by these health care professionals, that there were no community beds in my vicinity.

Diana Isola, RN with RCEB and Norma Pinnic, RN, Discharge Planner at CHO both regularly attended case conferences held at CHO and gave me the same spiel, that was no appropriate home nearby that could meet my son's needs.

Luckily a facility in Antioch, California had just opened up in 1994 and I got a bed for Devante. It was quite a commute for me to visit Devante regularly after work from Oakland, but I was grateful.

However after three short months the operator, also a RN, gave me notice that Devante was too involved for her and that she could no longer care for him. I had to take my son home and care for him myself and take him to his many medical appointments.

Than someone mentioned C & V Caring Friends to me, an Intermediate Care Facility that was operated by an RN and was licensed as a health care facility since 1992, the same year that my son was born.

When I contacted that facility they were willing to admit him. Devante was there for a good year. I cannot give enough praise to Ms. Fuller and her staff. Devante was very well cared for and making slow progress and I was holding out hope that he would recover and join our family again.

Sadly enough a year later Devante was admitted at CHO for feeding intolerances and the medical staff decided that they would no longer prolong his life. To this day I believe that had my son received the professional care he had received at C & V Caring Friends from day one, he would still be alive and well today.

I would have considered myself the luckiest father, if my son was still alive with or without any disability.

I know you cannot bring the son to back, but I hope that you can put an end to these unconscionable and unethical practices by "health-care professionals".

---

On Saturday, June 6th 1998, I had occasion to visit the C & V Caring Friends facility at 4853 Buckboard Way in El Sobrante. I went there, with little notice, to pick up some T-shirts that our company had mistakenly delivered to them.

Upon my arrival, I was invited in. Since I have a son, Scott Howard, who is a client in the Las Trampas system (residing at Camino House in Walnut Creek), I was interested in seeing another facility.

Immediately, I could see how clean and neat the house was. I walked to the back of the house and met the three children who live there. It was obvious that all three children needed constant care and supervision, especially the girl who needed her airway cleared out regularly. It was also obvious that the children were loved and in good hands.

The children were clean and comfortable in a bright, open environment. The lady in charge held the baby boy with love and hope.

The best compliment that I can pay the facility is that I would have no hesitation in having my son reside in an environment such as the one I witnessed that day.

---

To Whom It May Concern:

As a Social Casework Specialist in the West County office of Contra Costa County's Children & Family Services Department, I have worked with children in many different "placement" situations. The level of quality, professionalism, and plain-old loving kindness varies greatly from one foster/group home to the next.

At C&V Caring Friends Home, the level of quality, professionalism, and plain-old loving kindness is amongst the highest I have observed in our county and in the neighboring counties. The C&V Home serves the most medically fragile and developmentally impaired children on our caseloads. Many of these children require the services provided at a hospital or other medical facility, and therefore cannot be placed with non-medically trained foster parents or in group-home settings. For these children, I believe it is of utmost importance that they have the opportunity to live in a "normal," warm and loving home setting while receiving the medical care and services they require.

At the C&V Home, I have observed the cleanliness and safety procedures visibly written on signs on the walls and carried out by the staff members. Children in this home receive the services of a multidisciplinary treatment team consisting of a nutritionist, physical therapist, developmental psychologist and others, and are all under the skilled care of Ms. Fuller who is a Registered Nurse. Ms. Fuller works collaboratively with the children's county social workers, including facilitating appropriate visitation with parents in the home. In addition, Ms. Fuller saves the children's social workers valuable time by making and following through with referrals for the children to outside service agencies, including the Regional Centers and early childhood intervention programs.

The C&V Caring Friends Home is a very important placement resource for some of Contra Costa's most medically and developmentally at-risk children, and my hope is that this resource will continue to be available to the children that we serve.

Sincerely,

Nancy Kohn MSW

---

I am the mother of Jovan Cost, who we affectionately called Tyree.

Sadly enough I must inform you that we lost Tyree on his birthday December 25, 1998.

I must also admit that I made the biggest mistake of my life when I experimented with drugs during my pregnancy. I was young and foolish and that burden of guilt will rest on my heart till the last day of my life. Jovan has two older siblings. I got my wake-up call, when Tyree was taken away from me and became a ward of the State.

Since then I made great efforts to turn my life around in order to get my son back.

The staff at Childrens Hospital informed me that Tyree was too fragile to go home and he remained in the newborn ICU for over a year after birth. As a mother of two I could not stay long hours in the hospital with him, but my grandparents/best friends visited him faithfully.

Meanwhile I was working hard to prove to Tyree's case worker with Child Protective Services Child Protective Services (CPS), Mary Volz that I was trying my best to do right by my son.

By the time doctors cleared Tyree to be discharged I wanted to learn to take care of my son but she would not let me.

When it came down for him to be placed near us in Oakland, we were told that there was no qualified home in Oakland for him to go to. He was first placed in San Ramon with a lady named Judy Resberg. Supposedly this person was on a nurse. It was hard for me to visit him regularly because I did not have a car. When Tyree first went to live with her he was bottle fed. Then he could no longer bottle feed because his formula would end up in his lungs and had he to be rushed to the emergency room. Therefore the doctors put a feeding tube in his stomach.

Several times Tyree was also placed in a nursing home in San Jose because he was sometimes too much for even Judy to handle. After a while he had to be moved from there; We could never understand why they were moving him again.

Mary Volz and her co-worker, Joyce Livermore also with Alameda Co. Social Svcs. would search for a new home again. Then Tyree would end up at Judy Resberg's home again because she was the only one that had openings, they said. Sometimes Judy Resberg had as many as four to five children in her home when she should not have had more than two medically fragile children.

My grandparents visited him regularly and they often found Tyree with bruises on his body which we questioned. But Mary Volz always had an explanation for and informed us that, that was the only home with openings and that Tyree had bonded with Judy. We always rubbed him down with body lotion when we visited because he could not move and he had bed sores on his elbows and his back.

Luckily, on one occasion a visitor observed Judith slapping Tyree and he was moved when it was reported to Licensing. He was at Children's Hospital Oakland for some time while they claimed to be looking for a good home for him.

During 1992 through 1998 we attended several discharge planning team meetings, conducted by nurses, doctors and social workers of all the agencies involved with his care. These included the Regional Center of the East Bay (RCEB), Childrens Hospital Oakland and (CHO), Alameda County Child Protective Services.

Ethics Committee meetings were also held, all "in the best interest of my son's health, safety and welfare". My grandparents kept up with the names of some of these staff members that participated at one time or another in these meetings. Just to name a few are Diane Isola, RN. Lisa Kleinbub, RN. Bonnie Whitcom, RN. Norma Pinnic, RN. Joan Barouche, S W. Michele Minors, PHN. Purita Mesa, SW. Marsha Luster, LCSW. Dr. Mc.Quittee, Caroline Casey, RN.

For six years Tyree was being shuffled back and forth to different homes, in far away places but never in Oakland.

The last home they had placed Tyree was with a woman named, Mary Stuart in Hercules. Supposedly Mary Stuart had a lot of experience caring for medically fragile children.

Yet in her care he made more frequent emergency room visits then I wish recall.

When we wanted to visit Tyree we were not allowed to visit him in her home. We were never given her address. When we went to visit Tyree we had to go to Hilltop Mall in Richmond where she would meet us and drop off Tyree for about an hour, leave and return to pick him up an hour later.

Tyree wasn't there for many months when we got the news that she found him dead in bed on his birthday on Christmas Day.

This week for the first time since Tyree's birth, I learned that all these professionals that were involved with Tyree's care knew and had information about a home right here in Oakland since 1989, that was operated by a licensed registered nurse who had worked at Childrens Hospital for 11 years as well.

While this discovery, somewhat lifted the heavy weight of guilt that I have been carrying for so many years and gave me a little relief that perhaps it wasn't only my misdeeds that caused Jovan's early death, now however I am hurting in a different way.

I cannot help but wondering, what if?

What if Tyree had been placed with a nurse when he was first discharge from Oakland in 1993?

Would he still be alive?

When Tyree was about 3 years old he was able to kneel on his four pods and hold himself up. He was always all smiles, and could say "hi" and "bye".

The last few years of his life he couldn't do anything for himself. He used to eat a little by mouth, but no longer. He was obese and could not move around by himself any more.

He had to be turned by someone to change position. He had to be propped up with pillows to sit up right.

I also find out of that these former caretakers were not trained nurses as we were told. Mary Stuart the last care taker in Hercules first had to be trained before Tyree was entrusted into her care.

Please help me understand why we as family could not be trained to care for Jovan, but the staff at Childrens Hospital was willing to train a complete stranger?

This week I met with the nurse, Mrs. Virginia Fuller, who Tyree had the misfortune of never meeting, and I learned that her four bed licensed facility remained vacant for five years because RCEB said that they had no use for a her services; that the children they were looking placement for, needed a higher level of care than what she was licensed for.

To meet their demands Mrs. Fuller in 1992 opened a second facility in Richmond that was a health care facility licensed by the State Department of Health Services, specifically to care for the medically fragile children like Tyree who needed extended nursing care after leaving the intensive care unit of newborns.

That facility also remained vacant for more than three years and had to go out of business in the year 2000 because it was under utilized by the Regional Center, Childrens Hospital, the Social Services Department of surrounding counties and other hospital such as Alta Bates / Merritt Hospitals and Alameda County Medical Center, formerly known as Highland Hospital.

I am very confused. Why would the hospital staff go the extra mile to keep premature or ill infants alive, only to deny them basic and safe care after they discharge them? Could it be because they want these kids to keep coming back to the ER and operating rooms to assure that they have a job?

I am very angry. I want to know how many more went through the same misery as mine did. I want answers. I want all these hospitals and agencies investigated.

Please explain to me how this could have happened?

Please help me understand how medical professionals could have carried these out unconscionable acts without detection for so many years, without impunity?

---