Maya Kowalski, a young woman at the centre of a medical abuse case in Florida, spoke in a courtroom this week and detailed the last time she spoke with her now-deceased mother.
In 2016, when Maya was 10, she was diagnosed with a rare medical condition called complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and was admitted to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital (JHAC) in St. Petersburg, Florida, for severe pain.
However, after being looked at by medical staff, it was concluded her symptoms were not real and her parents were accused of medical abuse.
This resulted in the hospital contacting the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), who separated Maya from her parents.
Maya’s mother Beata Kowalski, a registered nurse, also demanded she be given doses of ketamine to quell her symptoms as a previous doctor had done so and it had proven somewhat successful.
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This approach by Beata concerned staff, who argued the approach was not in line with conventional medical practices and as a result a judge ordered Maya be held in state protective custody away from her parents.
Things then took a turn of the worst when Beata took her own life in January 2017 after 3 months of being restricted from seeing her daughter.
The Kowalski family are now suing the hospital for $220 million, alleging its actions led to Beata’s suicide.
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Taking the stand on Monday in court, Maya broke down in tears as she recalled the last words her mother spoke to her.
“I remember my mom had to leave at a certain point and it was the last time I talked to her,” Maya said on Monday at the Sarasota Circuit Court in Sarasota, Florida.
“She said ‘I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow'. I never saw her again,” Maya said as she broke down in tears.
The story of the abuse allegations against the Kowalski family was immortalized in the 2023 Netflix documentary Taking Care of Maya and went into greater depths of how CRPS affliction is poorly understood.
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“Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a broad term describing excess and prolonged pain and inflammation that can occur following an injury or other medical event such as surgery, trauma, stroke, or heart attack,” according to the National Institute of Health.
“CRPS has acute (recent, short-term) and chronic (lasting greater than six months) forms.
“Although CRPS improves over time, eventually going away in most people, the severe or prolonged cases are profoundly disabling. Because of the varied symptoms, the fact that symptoms may change over time, and the difficulty finding a positive cause in some cases, CRPS is hard to treat.”
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If you have been affected by the affected by the issues in this article, you can call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. The Lifeline provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, across the United States. Call or text 988 to connect with a trained crisis counselor. Support is also available via live chat at 988lifeline.org
Gerrard Kaonga