In March of 2023 we were falsely accused of child abuse by Dr. Jolene Drake when we requested X-rays for our 6 month old daughter who was struggling with severe constipation. Her X-rays showed “healed” rib fractures which triggered a hospital admission and abuse work up.

The abuse diagnosis was “confirmed” by a radiologist at children’s hospital named John Mawson who said her fractures were absolutely abuse despite her history of birth trauma. We were then sent to the SCAN clinic and assessed by Lara Malks-Jjumba who refused to have our daughter see any specialists despite her saying “if your daughter had a brittle bone disorder she would need to see endocrinology” she continued to deny the referral.

She also refused to reach out to our OB/Gyn about the birth trauma and initially said that our case was most definitely child maltreatment and abuse. It wasn’t until after our OB called her and the ministry and the lawyers and submitted in writing a statement confirming our daughter had suffered birth trauma and he believed he had broken her ribs, that she had to change her report to inconclusive. A report that stated no further testing was required and no further specialties were needed and that despite the fact that after 9 months our daughters repeat X-rays still showed visible fractures she did not feel our daughter had a brittle bone condition or that we had provided adequate explanations or evidence for our daughters fracture triggering a year long battle for our family against Child services trying to prevent them from kidnapping our daughter and them never once allowing or accepting a second opinion.

Our daughter has since been diagnosed with a brittle bone condition SEC24D gene deletion/ Osteogensis Imperfecta. Despite her diagnosis CAS states that we have not provided an adequate explanation of our daughters fractures and sadly they remain involved with our family.