A Venice family is suing All Children’s Hospital and a child abuse expert after an accusation of abuse led to a mother’s suicide.
In 2015, then-9-year old Maya Kowalski was taken to All Children’s for an asthma attack. A year later, the girl was rushed back to the hospital with a stomachache.
It was then that Dr. Sally Smith and hospital staff claimed Maya was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental illness in which a caretaker fakes their child’s illness for sympathy.
That led state officials to take the girl from her family, which led to her mother, Beata Kowalski, to commit suicide.