Missing girl's parents lose suitBy KATHY GEORGE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
August 11, 2003 - Time goes on for others, but our time has stopped.
Words cannot explain the total devastation of our world ...
-- from a poem by Katrina Nash's parents
The last time Dottie Nash saw her daughter, the 15-year-old girl was on an Olympia hospital bed, trembling and twitching from a sudden onset of acute psychosis.
Reluctantly, the worried mother agreed to leave the room only after nurses promised to watch the girl.
But they didn't, court records say, and Katrina Nash ran away -- never to be seen again.
Now, seven years later, the state Court of Appeals has told Katrina's parents they have no recourse against the hospital.
The case has brought new attention to a controversial state law that gives children 13 or older the right to make their own mental health care decisions.
The court cited that law in rejecting the Nashes' negligence suit, saying Providence St. Peter Hospital had no duty to keep their daughter from leaving because she voluntarily had agreed to a mental evaluation and had the right to change her mind.
"They've really tied our hands as parents," said Dottie Nash, who had hoped her lawsuit would prevent hospitals from letting other mentally ill children run away.
State Rep. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, who worked this year on unsuccessful bills to give parents more control over troubled children, said yesterday, "Maybe this (case) will be a great impetus to do some further work next session."
We enjoyed the beautiful music you played, the poems and stories you wrote, your kind and loving heart.
You played Tinkerbell in "Peter Pan."
Now you have gone to Never-Never Land where we cannot follow.
Before Katrina Nash suddenly became ill in June 1996, she was a model student at Timberline High School in Lacey, where she was active in drama and music.
She had big plans, her mother said. "She wanted to be a concert pianist. She wanted to be a marine biologist. She wanted to be onstage on Broadway."
Katrina Nash was a model student at her high school in Lacey before she become ill in 1996.
The youngest of nine children, Katrina Nash was devoted to her family and never got into trouble.
So it was especially alarming when, all of a sudden one weekend, she started acting irrationally, her parents said.
She couldn't sleep or even sit still. She paced back and forth. More than once, she ran off to her friends' homes without saying a word.
After an examination, Katrina's family doctor concluded she was suffering from manic depression or some other acute psychosis and was unable to care for herself, according to court records. The doctor arranged an evaluation at Providence.
Before her parents took her to the hospital, Katrina refused to take her new medication and "started acting real paranoid," Dottie Nash said.
Once at the hospital, Katrina agreed to be evaluated as an outpatient. The hospital's notes said she was acting "manic and paranoid" and her status was "urgent."
When the hospital's crisis counselor asked Katrina's mother to talk privately in a room down the hall, "I said, 'I don't want to leave Katrina.' I was afraid," Dottie Nash said.
But a nurse promised to watch the girl on a video monitor. Katrina had finally managed to fall asleep, although she was still shaking and shivering.
"Nobody actually saw her leave. We don't know what happened," Dottie Nash said. "She woke up and I was gone. She might not have known why she was there."
The hospital and its lawyer declined to comment on the case.
About 100 volunteers, mostly from the Nashes' church, searched around the hospital through the night. Some of Katrina's teachers joined the search the next day.
But Katrina had vanished, with no money and no identification, leading her parents to think that somebody picked her up and either hurt her or put her in harm's way.
Every time we see a petite young lady with long blonde hair go by, Our heart stops and our eyes fill with tears.
When will we see you again ?
In an opinion issued Tuesday, the Court of Appeals said, "Our Legislature has given youth who are at least 13 years old essentially exclusive authority" over their own mental health care.
"Therefore, when (Katrina) changed her mind, the hospital lacked legal authority to detain her against her will, even if her parents requested that she be detained. The hospital had no duty to the Nashes, nor to anyone else, to prevent Katrina from leaving."
The point of giving kids that authority, said Cassie Sauer of the Washington State Hospital Association, is to prevent parental abuse.
If children can't decide their own care, abusive parents might prevent them from getting needed treatment, or might stop them from reporting abuse by committing them involuntarily to mental hospitals, she said.
It's also an individual rights issue. "There are lots of people, kids and adults, who leave hospitals against medical advice. I don't think we want hospitals to say, 'You can't leave,' " Sauer said.
Rep. Eileen Cody, D-Seattle, chairwoman of the House Health Care Committee, agrees with letting kids decide their own care.
"If a 13-year-old murders someone, you're going to hold him responsible. You can't say that the kid is responsible one time and not another."
But Carrell, the lawmaker vowing to change the law, said the Nash case illustrates why parents need to decide what's best for mentally ill children.
Kim Putnam and John Budlong, attorneys for the Nashes, said the court ignored state regulations requiring hospitals to closely observe acutely mentally ill patients or seclude them temporarily in a room with staff-controlled locks.
If Katrina wanted to leave, "the hospital could have turned her over to her parents," Budlong said. Instead, "they took her parents away and they didn't watch her."
Putnam added, "Hospitals that lose acutely mentally ill kids have got to be held accountable."
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P-I reporter Kathy George can be reached at kathygeorge@seattlepi.com
http://www.msnbc.com/local/pisea/134517.asp?0na=x2223130-
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*This case tugs at my heart strings, not fair, parents have no rights and they can't find their precious daughter.
LadyBug
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