Complaint / Review
State Of Connecticut, Department Of Children And Families
Medical Neglect

DCF does not abide by the rules they set forth. According to the DCF rules, the following applies:

Neglect

Neglect is the failure, whether intentional or not, of the person responsible for the child's care to provide and maintain adequate food, clothing, medical care, supervision, and/or education.
A child may be found neglected who: has been abandoned
is being denied proper care and attention physically, educationally, emotionally, or morally is being permitted to live under conditions, circumstances or associations injurious to his well-being
is being abused.

Description/Examples: Medical Neglect

Medical neglect is:
the refusal or failure on the part of the person responsible for the child's care to seek, obtain, and/or maintain those services for necessary medical, dental, or mental health care
withholding medically indicated treatment from disabled infants with life-threatening conditions.

The problem comes in when I called DCF (in cooperation with another agency) due to my daughter coming home with untrated yeast infections, athlete's foot and ear infections. All of these issues arise when she visits with her father. There are no other times that these medical issues occur. He did not and does not in any way attempt to get our daughter medical attention. This is after our daughters ENT said that if she is left with an untreated ear infection, she can go deaf.

In fact the doctors reports even show that he did not seek the appropriate medical attention for her. One of the yeast infections was so blistery and raw that I took her to the hospital to have it checked. I even asked the doctor how this could happen during an overnight visit. He told me that she is being left in dirty diapers. DCF claims to have done an investigation and found no neglect.

However, according to their standards, this is neglect. So, which is it? Are their standards to complex for their employees to follow? Or, is it that they just don't care what happens because it's not their child? On the other hand, I did receive some information from a source who will remain unnamed. This person stated, DCF goes by statistics. If the type of abuse or neglect is not typical in that area, DCF will not consider it abuse or neglect. I tend to believe the "source". It's either that or the state employees are just lax in their duties.