A young Russian couple living in Sacramento, California had their 5-month-old baby boy removed from them by Child Protective Services, after they took their son out of a hospital following in search of a second medical opinion.
Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex took their 5-month-old boy Sammy to Sutter Memorial Hospital to be treated for flu symptoms two weeks ago, but said they were not happy with the medical attention their son was receiving from the staff members, according to KXTV news.
Since Sammy also suffers from a heart murmur, doctors at Sutter admitted him to the pediatric ICU to monitor his condition. After a few days, Anna said doctors began talking about heart surgery.
During their stay at the hospital, Anna asked once why a nurse was giving her son antibiotics.
"I asked her, for what is that? And she's like, 'I don't know.' I'm like, 'you're working as a nurse, and you don't even know what to give to my baby for what,'" Anna recounted the event. Her enquiry potentially protected the little boy because later a doctor said Sammy shouldn't have been on the antibiotics in the first place.
"If [they made] one mistake after another, I don't want to let my baby have surgery in the hospital where I don't feel safe," Anna told News 10. The couple promptly took Sammy out of the hospital without a proper discharge and sought a second opinion at rival hospital Kaiser Permanente.
While the Nikolayevs were at Kaiser, police arrived, presumably called by doctors at Sutter Memorial. Anna was forced to show the police a note from a Kaiser doctor, which read: "I do not have concern for the safety of the child at home with his parents."
"[The police] saw the baby was fine," Anna said. "They told us that Sutter was telling them so much bad stuff that they thought this baby was dying in our arms. So police saw the report from doctors and said, 'Okay, you guys have a good day,' then walked away."
Just a day after Sammy was discharged home, police along with representatives from Child Protective Services (CPS) entered the family home without a warrant and took Sammy from Anna's arms and walked out. A camera that Anna set up in the living room recorded the entire event. In the video, a police officer is heard telling Anna "I'm going to grab your baby, and don't resist, and don't fight me, okay?"
Sammy remains in protective custody at Sutter Memorial Hospital, and his parents were able to visit him for an hour last Thursday. A court hearing for the case is scheduled for Monday, April 29.
