The young woman at the center of a medical malpractice case that culminated in her mother’s suicide testified Friday how she blamed herself for the shocking death.
“I think if I had let him think I was fine, maybe he wouldn’t have taken the step of ending his life to get me out of there,” Maya Kowalski, now 17, said of having to stay in the hospital, adding: “I think This is my fault.”
Kowalski and his family sued Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg for $220 million, asserting that he was held against his will and separated from his family for three months.
Just 10 years old at the time, Kowalski was admitted to the facility in 2016 for treatment of severe pain.
His mother, Beata Kowalski, told doctors he had a rare neurological condition called complex regional pain syndrome.
Previous doctors, he said at the time, had prescribed ketamine to ease his symptoms.
Maya Kowalski took the stand in the $220 million case this week.THOMAS BENDER/HERALD-TRIBUNE Pool Photo/Thomas Bender/Sarasota Herald-Tribune Pool Photo/Thomas Bender / USA TODAY NETWORK Beata Kowalski killed herself after being separated from her daughter for three months.Courtesy Netflix
But hospital staff grew increasingly skeptical of both Kowalski’s physical complaints and his mother’s unorthodox treatment claims.
Concluding that Beata had Munchausen by proxy syndrome — where caregivers fake a child’s condition for attention — they prevented her from seeing Maya and alerted Florida child welfare authorities.
Maya was then accidentally made a ward of the state — and did not see her mother for 87 days.
Facing accusations of child abuse and distraught over the breakup, Beats hanged himself in the garage of their family home in January 2017.
Unaware of the suicide, Maya testified this week that she woke up around 2 a.m. the next morning.
“I cried ‘I miss my mother, I love my mother,'” she said. “I have that feeling. I felt it.”
The case ended up being the subject of the Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya,” which was released earlier this year.
Maya, now a high school senior, tearfully recounted her experience at Friday’s hearing, telling jurors that she felt threatened all the time – even in her own home.
“In many ways I still feel trapped in my 10- and 11-year-old body,” she said. “That’s where my headspace has been living for the last six and a half years.”
The Kowalskis accused Johns Hopkins Hospital in St. Petersburg wrongfully detained Maya. Mike Lang / USA TODAY NETWORK
But the hospital’s lawyers have countered that medical staff have legitimate concerns.
They argued that ketamine treatment was fraught with risk, and Beata requested an unusually high dose to treat her daughter’s symptoms.
They have emphasized that previous courts have found that hospital staff acted out of genuine concern.
“This court has ruled that Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital reported suspected child abuse Maya Kowalski in good faith,” the Sept. 12 request for a special jury instruction states, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
But Maya testified this week that she still suffers from debilitating symptoms – and hospital staff mocked her condition while she was separated from her mother.
Maya’s father, Jack Kowalski, filed a $220 million lawsuit in 2018, alleging false imprisonment, medical malpractice and infliction of emotional distress.
The case is ongoing.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
