Comments on: Girl’s overdose death raises questions

By: Abeba. Gebrehiwot

Abeba. Gebrehiwot — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 15:09:17 +0000

This is sad & Rebecca will not be the last child that will fall through the cracks. Everyone connected to such stories is a victim of the universal ignorance, stigma, confusion & fear surrounding mental illness. What is even sadder is that the same blame game, rush to sue, punish that one villan starts. I may be dreaming but I wish everyone involved would sit down and figure out how they could have prevented this tragedy & find a way to help what is left of the family & the system that keeps purputuating the same tragedy only in different locations. The child should have been removed but how many of us are lined up to find solutions for such problems? It is simply overwhelming & the sooner we realize that we all live in the same village the better for all us. Rebecca is everybody’s child. Her parents are also victims of their own mental illness. The social workers & the doctors are victims of policiesjwe knowingly or unkowingly support. What do we do now?? I suggest we keep reading everthing we can about mental health until the stigma & confusion is replaced with knowledge and compassion. Stop dishing out blames until we walk in their shoes. Thank you for writing the story.

By: Sarah Baldwin

Sarah Baldwin — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:51:23 +0000

That poor little girl! This smacks of parental abuse, especially the father, but mother was ALSO wrong in NOT protecting the child. Both should be punished -severely. The live-in inlaws & the neighbors comments are very telling. The fact the Dr was alarmed and limited the prescription to only 10 days helps, but she should have been required to
run a blood test and report this as a child abuse case. The teachers observed the truth,but should have been more effective & REPORTED this clearly as child abuse. The parents were abusing all their children and should have lost them, and s/h/b removed from any “welfare subsidy” - in fact this demonstrates that there should be welfare for WORK with mandatory public childcare for kids of deadbeat bad-parents, to give the children a chance. Free vasectomy for him, and sterilation or free 5 Yr birth control each 5 yrs for her. How much injury & damage should they be allowed to inflict before the authorities step in? They step in often where they should not, and fail totally when they should have intervened. Hold seminars w/o the parents -they have little to offer other than lies & lame excuses, so let the rest of the adults study this situation, create a timeline, and determine what could have been done & when, to intervene & prevent this horrible type of child abuse. Institutionalization would have been far kinder. As an oprhan at age 4 &1/2, I wished the Govt would have intervened, but the SW didn’t even talk to us, only the “guardians” who told them what they wanted to hear. Our abuse was emotional, psycho- logical & sexual (not me, but my 6 yr old sister) (1940’s) but what would the County have done with 3 orphans when they could pay the Guardians $120, who claimed them as relatives? I knew then, there were good, kind and loving adults who would’ve provided good homes, even if we had to be split up, (that didn’t have to be permanent.)We had excellent loving parents, a joyful home,until the Auto accident, then suddenly we were lost in a hard cold unloving space. Thank God we were blessed with intelligence, God,and we learned how to survive & raise ourselves. We always worked-were so happy to work to earn our keep, as work saved us (farm)-protected us from abuse-at times when the work was more important or pressing.Work is not a bad thing, as long as it is possible for a child to do without permanent damage, it’s great. But maybe that’s just me. So sorry for Rebecca, but thank God she’s in a far better place now. I know God loves her -her parents don’t even love themselves. They’re really WORTHLESS PIGS. They’ll never learn.
Our “guardians” were the same ages when they took us in -very cruel ages-they never improved or changed their tactics. We were an “income” for them, & free labor. That’s all Our parents were older, educated, loving &religious persons. By age 8, I had come to feel sorry for their children because at least we knew we had been precious & loved by our parents, which always gave me great strength in desperate times. My father had told me about God when I was 3 and I was delighted to have another Father in Heaven, if I ever needed him. I did on many occasions and He always saved me. I love God forever & always. God Bless Rebecca and her surviving siblings. SarahAnn

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:36:57 +0000

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article s overdose death raises questions, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:39:18 +0000

I have to say, that I could not agree with you in 100% regarding s overdose death raises questions, but it’s just my opinion, which could be wrong