Woman
Loses
Custody
of
Children
After
Hospital
Botches
Drug
Test
2/18/00
A California woman lost her job, was forced into drug treatment, and lost custody of her children for three months after her newborn baby tested positive for the prescription drug Seconal, even though a doctor had provided the woman with the drug when she was in labor. When Noel Lujan arrived at a local hospital last October to give birth to her son Daniel, a doctor prescribed the barbiturate Seconal to relax her. But he didn't tell that to hospital staff who tested the unmarried mother's baby for drugs -- and they didn't ask. After Daniel was born, Lujan was told of the test results and was not allowed to take him home. Orange County child welfare authorities assigned temporary custody of the baby and Lujan's other three young children to Lujan's parents. According to Lujan, she was allowed to stay at the house with them, but she was not permitted to feed Daniel without supervision. Meanwhile, Lujan was forced to enter a drug treatment program, which caused her to miss so many days of work that she lost her job. She was also subjected to repeated hair and urine drug tests. "It was horrible," she told the Associated Press this week. "The whole three months they were telling me I was a drug addict, that I was in denial." According to court records, child welfare workers did not learn that the Seconal had been prescribed until mid-January. The doctor who prescribed it claims he was notified before Lujan's children were taken away. Lujan's children have since been returned to her custody, but she and the children's father will remain under children's services supervision until July. Michael Riley, director of Orange County's Children and Family Services agency, told the AP this week, "If this is an honest error, then we are sincerely sorry."
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