PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Maya recalled being placed in a room for about 48 hours and was filmed with her knowledge, she said. The room had a commode a few feet away from her bed. The family’s attorney, Greg Anderson, has previously alleged it was put out of reach in an attempt to prove Maya was faking her illness. Maya, who was in a wheelchair when she was admitted, testified she could not walk. More than once, nurses did not respond to her request to be lifted to the commode before she soiled the bed, she testified. According to court records, the decision to film her for two days was not ordered or approved by a judge or Maya’s parents. Hospital social worker Catherine Bedy frequently monitored Maya’s phone calls and interaction with others, Maya said. Bedy would have Maya sit on her lap and would sometimes kiss her on the cheek, Maya testified, saying the affection made her uncomfortable. Attorneys for the Kowalski family also showed the jury photographs of Maya in shorts and a training bra taken by Bedy on the day Maya was scheduled to go to a court hearing, Bedy told Maya the photos were to document her medical condition and she would not be able to attend court if she did not consent, Maya said. The photographs were not added to her medical records, Maya testified. Bedy, who was initially named as a defendant, was dropped from the lawsuit during jury selection. She no longer works for All Children’s."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Maya’s testimony came on Day 9 of the civil jury trial that is expected to last for eight weeks. At times during the trial, the 17-year-old has looked haunted as doctors and experts testified about CRPS, an intermittent condition that is rated on some medical pain scales as being worse than childbirth. When asked to describe the pain to the jury Monday, Maya said it was like she was born with gasoline deep within her body and that medical issues like a sprained ankle or an asthma attack were like a match, a “catalyst that just set my body on fire and I have to live with this burning pain.”
STORY: "Maya Kowalski tells her story in lawsuit against St. Petersburg hospital," by Staff Reporter Christopher O'Donnell, published by The Tampa Bay Times, on October 9, 2023.
SUB-HEADING: The girl at the center of Netflix’s “Take Care of Maya” testified Monday that All Children’s doctors and nurses said her pain and illness were in her head."
PHOTO CAPTION: "Maya Kowalski, 17, took the stand for more than five hours Monday during a civil jury trial Monday at the South County Courthouse in Venice to testify about her stay at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, and her mother's death during that time. The Kowalski family's lawsuit is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages. It alleges that hospital employees battered and falsely imprisoned Maya, that the hospital was negligent in its medical treatment of the girl, and that the hospital caused severe emotional distress to the family, which was a factor in Beata Kowalski's suicide."
GIST: "Maya Kowalski was 10 when she saw her mom for the final time in a hospital room at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, the Venice girl told a jury Monday.
She had been in the hospital for about a week after she was admitted — screaming and writhing from severe pain and constipation, she said. Her mother had to leave for work but was planning to visit her daughter the next day.
By the next day, a judge ordered that Maya be separated from her parents and sheltered at All Children’s based on a hospital social worker’s report of suspected medical child abuse, court records show.
“She said, ‘I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow,’ and I never saw her again,” Maya said, her voice breaking with emotion. Seated beside the family’s attorneys, Maya’s father, Jack Kowalski, and her brother, Kyle Kowalski, wiped tears from their faces.
In more than five hours of testimony in a Venice courtroom Monday, Maya, now 17, gave her account of her three-month involuntary stay at the St. Petersburg hospital, a story that has made international headlines and is the subject of the Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya.”
A clear-spoken, calm and confident witness, she talked about how scared and lonely she was as a 10-year-old girl —isolated from her family in a hospital where doctors and nurses did not believe her symptoms were real.
Her phone calls with her mother were supervised by a social worker who, she testified, rolled her eyes and interrupted when the conversation veered onto when the young girl might see her mother again.
Maya said she was forced to endure painful physical therapy that inflamed her complex regional pain syndrome, or CRPS, a rare neurological condition that left her arms and legs highly sensitive to touch.
She was still in the hospital three months later when her father, her younger brother and a family priest came to her room to tell her that her mother had taken her own life. They were given very little time to comfort Maya before they were told to leave, she said.
Maya gave her testimony wearing a necklace that she had bought for her mother. Her mother wore it every day while Maya was in All Children’s and she was wearing it when she died, Maya told the jury.
The 2018 lawsuit the Kowalski family filed against All Children’s in Sarasota County is seeking compensatory and punitive damages of about $220 million total, according to reports.
It alleges that hospital employees battered and falsely imprisoned Maya, that the hospital was negligent in its medical treatment of the girl, and that the hospital caused severe emotional distress to the family, which was a factor in the mother’s suicide.
The suit also alleges that the hospital fraudulently billed her insurance company roughly $536,000 for treatment for the disorder that hospital doctors said Maya did not have.
Maya recalled being placed in a room for about 48 hours and was filmed with her knowledge, she said.
The room had a commode a few feet away from her bed. The family’s attorney, Greg Anderson, has previously alleged it was put out of reach in an attempt to prove Maya was faking her illness.
Maya, who was in a wheelchair when she was admitted, testified she could not walk. More than once, nurses did not respond to her request to be lifted to the commode before she soiled the bed, she testified.
According to court records, the decision to film her for two days was not ordered or approved by a judge or Maya’s parents.
Hospital social worker Catherine Bedy frequently monitored Maya’s phone calls and interaction with others, Maya said. Bedy would have Maya sit on her lap and would sometimes kiss her on the cheek, Maya testified, saying the affection made her uncomfortable.
Attorneys for the Kowalski family also showed the jury photographs of Maya in shorts and a training bra taken by Bedy on the day Maya was scheduled to go to a court hearing, Bedy told Maya the photos were to document her medical condition and she would not be able to attend court if she did not consent, Maya said.
The photographs were not added to her medical records, Maya testified. Bedy, who was initially named as a defendant, was dropped from the lawsuit during jury selection. She no longer works for All Children’s.
Over the first eight days of the trial, attorneys for All Children’s focused on how Maya was able to regain the ability to walk and return to school in the months after her discharge without the use of ketamine, and that All Children’s medical staffers are required by state law to report any suspicion of child abuse.
The Kowalskis were also given the opportunity to transfer Maya to Nemours Children’s Health in Orlando. It specializes in pain management, hospital attorneys said.
Jack Kowalski said he and his wife would not sign a referral form since it listed conversion disorder, a condition where a patient experiences symptoms with no underlying neurological reason.
Before she went to All Children’s in October 2016, Maya had been diagnosed with CRPS by more than one pain specialist, according to Anderson, the family attorney."
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