[masklinn]

> I would mention lawyers and lawsuits a lot more during the visit in this hospital and definitely sue them with a 500 pages long claim.

That would be idiotic, nonsensical and a very good way to make current and future interactions even worse. Hospitals are mandatory reporters, if they don't report suspicious situations (such as a pregnant mother failing a drug test) they're on the hook for it, and they must prepare for a possible NAS case which is anything but fun, or a walk in the park.

And despite the completely one-sided report, it looks like much of the antipathy came from her insisting on her "experience" and on e.g. breastfeeding the child.

[staticautomatic]

I think the real issue is that they're administering a test with an apparently high false positive rate and then using that as a basis for depriving both child and mother of interaction and making an already difficult process much worse. I find the hospital's conduct reprehensible if they knew or should have known that a false positive was eminently possible, if not likely based on some OTC drug the mother may have taken. I myself would file a lawsuit for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, which would likely make it past a motion to dismiss and result in a settlement. And yes, I work on high stakes lawsuits for a living.

[pigpaws]

the issue isn't the mandatory reporting. The issue was the way they treated here AFTER the two known-to-be-spurious tests, neither of which were blood draws which are vastly more accurate.

So, yes, a lawsuit would be in order (IMO). I wouldn't ask for a huge payday, but at the very least that they clean up their testing procedures and follow protocols.

[masklinn]

> The issue was the way they treated here AFTER the two known-to-be-spurious tests

The tests were not known to be spurious by the hospital.

> neither of which were blood draws which are vastly more accurate.

Blood draws tests are also much longer (that's the 2~3 weeks test whose results they got afterwards).

> I wouldn't ask for a huge payday

Not that you'd get any even if you did.

> at the very least that they clean up their testing procedures and follow protocols.

Is there any protocol you know them to not have followed?

Keeping in mind that the one account we have is the one-sided version of the parents, consider the hospital's point of view: what they have is an expectant mother who has twice failed a drug test and thus a NAS risk, a nearly DOA newborn from emergency C-section and the possibly drug-addicted mother thereafter insists on breastfeeding.

[tremon]

The tests were not known to be spurious by the hospital.

Then the hospital is negligent. It is their responsibility to know the failure modes of any technology they use.

[FireBeyond]

They do. And the balance of probabilities is that the urinalysis is more likely than not to be accurate (I don't know percentages). So as a mandated reporter, they did what they could.

They gave multiple chances for retests. The results were consistent.

A blood test four weeks prior to delivery would be a good start, but still leaves a window.

There are two suboptimal possibilities at that point:

1) err on the side of the mother, who has failed (incorrectly as it may be) multiple drug tests and allow her to breastfeed her child, or

2) err on the side of the child, who is exhibiting symptoms that could point to NAS, bradycardia and the like, who is delivered by emergency C-section (so she would not have had the bonding experience immediately post partum, as it was, anyway)

They did know the failure mode.

They evaluated.

They held off on calling CPS. They allowed contact after the baby's urinalysis.

There is no negligence here. The father showing by their own words anecdotal forum posts and such is not reason for the hospital to say "Well, what do we know, here you go".

[ska]

The existence of a known confounding factor rarely can turn a false positive into a true negative. So you're left in the same boat, really.

[Bud]

Uh, the tests weren't "known to be spurious" at the time.

[serge2k]

> The issue was the way they treated here AFTER the two known-to-be-spurious tests

You mean by sending away for a more accurate test which cleared things up?