Take Care of Maya, a new documentary that premiered at Tribeca Film Festival last week and began streaming on Netflix today, may open some viewers’ eyes to exactly how flawed the child protection laws in the U.S. really are.
Directed by Henry Roosevelt, the documentary follows a young girl named Maya Kowalski, who began to exhibit symptoms of a rare disease when she was 9 years old. She was in extreme pain, had trouble moving her limbs, and developed lesions on her skin. After many different doctors, hospitals, and treatments that did nothing, Maya’s parents, Beata and Jack Kowalski, finally found a doctor who provided them a diagnosis and a treatment that helped their daughter. Maya had complex regional pain syndrome, or CRPS, and she required high doses of doctor-prescribed ketamine to manage her pain.
For about a year, the treatment worked, and Maya saw vast improvements in her symptoms. But when she relapsed in the fall of 2016, begging for help because of her pain, her father took Maya to the pediatric emergency room at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. Many of the nurses and doctors there had never heard of CRPS, and didn’t listen to Maya’s mother, Beata—also a nurse—who explained her diagnosis and treatment.
Instead, the doctors grew suspicious that Maya was being abused by her family; that this was a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy—aka, that the parents were deliberately keeping their daughter ill with ketamine injections. Eventually, the hospital called Florida’s Department of Children and Families, and Maya was taken away by the state. She wasn’t released from state custody for months to come, following a complicated legal battle. Her father was occasionally allowed to visit, and her mother was only allowed to contact her daughter via supervised phone and video calls.
It’s a horrifying story that only gets worse as you watch. Read on to find out where Maya Kowalski from Take Care of Maya is today.
After being forcibly taken away from her family by All Children’s Hospital when she was 10 years old in 2016, Maya finally left All Children’s Hospital in January 2017. She is now 16 years old.
According to a recent New York Magazine profile, she exercises daily to manage her pain, and is “academically ambitious.” She is currently participating in Duke University’s Talent Identification Program for gifted children. She is a figure skater, and took first place in a competition in March.
But despite this, Maya Kowalski’s story does not have a happy ending. In January 2017, while Maya was still being held in the hospital, her mother Beata died by suicide. Beata had recently been denied a request to hug her daughter on a rare visit to the hospital. She was found in the family’s home in Venice by a relative, hanging from the garage ceiling. She left a note that read, “I’m sorry, but I no longer can take the pain being away from Maya and being treated like a criminal. I cannot watch my daughter suffer in pain and keep getting worse while my hands are tied by the state of FL and the judge!”
In October 2018, the family sued All Children’s Hospital, the privatized child welfare company Suncoast Center Inc, Florida’s Department of Children and Families, and Maya’s social worker, Cathi Bedy. A judge ruled that the family was owed punitive damages for the charges of battery and false imprisonment. Suncoast and their employee, Dr. Sally Smith, paid the family $2.5 million, but the other suits are still ongoing. A trial date has been set for September 7, 2023.
While speaking to New York Magazine, Maya’s father, Jack Kowalski, said his family has been damaged beyond repair. “Psychologically, it destroyed all of us,” he said. “When somebody knocks on our door, now you don’t want to answer it because you’re worried it’s somebody from Children and Families. You don’t want your child to play sports because if they get hurt, where am I going to take them?”
If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.