A woman is suing Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois after medical staff falsely accused her of abusing her infant son.
As reported by the Chicago Tribune, Jillian Robinson alleges in a lawsuit filed last month that she took her ten-month-old son to the medical center last spring out of concern over a strange mark on his ear.
Doctors took one look at the bruise and assumed the mother had abused her baby. As it turned out, the discolored skin on her son’s ear was a birthmark, according to the lawsuit filed on April 20 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Doctors at Advocate Christ were not certain what the mark was when they reported “a suspected case of child abuse by Ms. Robinson,” to the Department of Children and Family Services, the lawsuit alleges. According to the report, they sliced into the baby’s ear bruise and were unsuccessful in their attempt to drain it. They also performed an unnecessary head CT and bone scan on the baby to “support their presumption of child abuse after making a DCFS report,” the lawsuit alleges.
The nightmare for Robinson didn’t end there — as DCFS initially threatened to place her son in foster care as part of a “safety plan.” Robinson was ultimately required to live with the infant at her uncle’s home for about a week until the safety plan ended last May.
“To say I was blindsided is an understatement,” Robinson told the Tribune. “I was made to feel like I was crazy. Everything that was being said to me was against rational, logical thought, from my point of view.”
During her time at the hospital, Robinson claims a staff member told her that there is a vast difference in the way the hospital treats white families who bring in children with bruises compared to Black parents who do the same, the lawsuit alleges. She was also subjected to offensive comments about her son’s fair skin and staffers pressed her with questions about his father.
“Ms. Robinson, who is darker-skinned than her son, experienced these comments as not only racist and offensive but also as micro-aggressive challenges to her parentage of her child,” the lawsuit alleges.
Per the Tribune, Robinson is seeking damages and an order requiring Advocate Christ to “implement and require adherence to policies, procedures and trainings to prevent racially biased and/or racially motivated medical treatment and reporting to DCFS and other government agencies,” according to the lawsuit.
“It is unfortunately representative of systemic issues,” said Diaz-Pollack, senior counsel with the Human Services Office for Civil Rights. “This is both a case where a Black mother and her son were individually harmed and we’re seeking redress for her in her individual capacity, but also based on what we’ve learned about biases in the health care system, this case has the potential to make a positive impact.”
