The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Mother sues hospital over drug test
A mother sued a Pittsburgh hospital Wednesday, saying it collected and tested her urine for drugs without her consent while she was in labor and reported a false positive result to protective services that resulted in a child abuse investigation.
It is the second such lawsuit filed against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center since 2014 and one of a few legal actions or ethical complaints filed around the country over false positives on quick-screening urine drug tests that triggered child abuse investigations and turned the joy of giving birth into a nightmare of custody concerns.
Cherell Harrington, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, gave birth to her third child at UPMC’s Magee-Women’s Hospital in November 2017. She says medical staff collected her urine without her consent and tested her for drugs.
An unconfirmed positive result came back for components of marijuana. Hospital staff then tested her newborn son — results were negative — but they still reported the unconfirmed test results to Allegheny County’s Office of Children, Youth and Families.
That office required a home visit that included a caseworker photographing Harrington’s children and asking her then 11-year-old daughter about her mother’s “use of addictive substances.” Even after a recommendation was made not to require treatment, the caseworker also obtained medical records and called her dentist, pediatrician and her daughter’s school.
Harrington said she was threatened with longer-term mandatory drug testing if she did not submit to the program and the contacts.
She argues in the lawsuit that the hospital and the county violated her constitutional rights and her medical privacy.
Harrington said in an interview Wednesday that she was reluctant to go back to UPMC to seek care after her cesarean section. The hospital system made her feel violated and traumatized, she said.
“I would like for them to acknowledge that they have hurt many women and children and ruined experiences when they shouldn’t have the power to do that. We were there to deliver our children,” Harrington said. “And what they did was so traumatizing and so hurtful. I can’t get that birth, I can’t get those days back. I can’t. I want them to change what they are doing and just stop it.”
Lawyers are seeking class action for the lawsuit and damages for all plaintiffs.