Michigan families have filed a federal lawsuit against the State's Department of Human Services today. They're claiming the state concealed their adopted children's handicapped medical records from them before they were adopted.
Lansing Attorney David Kallman is representing the eight Michigan families. He says the families of these adopted children are hurting financially, spending thousands of dollars trying to keep up with their health care costs. Kallman also claims the state intentionally didn't warn these families of these children's handicaps in fear they wouldn't get adopted.
"It's so unethical. It's a terrible thing to do to these families," said Martha*. "There's no excuse for how DHS takes children who are profoundly multiply impaired and says here's a healthy child."
This Lansing-area mom has a total of four adopted children who she says are all mentally impaired. They're now young adults, but she says it's was tough for her and her husband to raise them.
"Our income has dropped by over 80 percent in order to cover our living expenses, we've had to take out multiple, in the last 20 years since adopting the kids, we've had to take multiple disbursements from his retirement," said Martha.
She says it all started with her first adopted child when he was six months old. It wasn't until later that she learned he had fetal alcohol syndrom.
"The screaming and the sleeping and the stiffening and he had respatory problems... We had to take him to the doctor frequently for emergency respatory treatments, all those were indicators of drug withdrawl," said Martha.
Martha says she was denied aid by the state to help pay for his expenses. A Flint-area mother says she wasn't told about her 5-year-old adopted daughter's behavioral issues.
"She's had difficulties with her sleeping, irregular waking up in the middle of the night and things like that," said Sharon*.
"They love these children. They've been providing care and treatment for years. They just want what they're entitled to receive," said Kallman.
DHS has released this comment: "Because DHS takes all issues of child safety seriously, the state attorney general's office met with Mr. Kallman regarding his allegations this past august the attorney general's office has requested information from Mr. Kallman to assist with this matter, thus far to no avail."
Read the original story here.
*Names were changed
