Take Care of Maya Review: The Netflix documentary film is directed by Henry Roosevelt and executive produced by Dan Logan, Liz Garbus, Jon Bardin and others. It’s a story syndicate production made in association with Wise Fool and has a runtime of about 1 hour and 43 minutes.
It shows the traumatic events that the Kowalski family had to go through when they took their ailing daughter to the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. They came in due to stomach pains but were left with the charge of Medical child abuse and the possibility of never seeing their daughter ever again. The documentary investigates all the events that happened and broke a family apart forever.
Jack Kowalski was a firefighter and Beata Kowalski was an infusion nurse. They have two children Maya and Kyle together while living in Venice, Florida. Until one day, when Maya started experiencing intense pain in her whole body and losing mobility in her hands & legs. The family visited numerous doctors to figure out the cause of the illness but were given no answers.
It was Dr Kirkpatrick who diagnosed Maya Kowalski with CRPS (Complex regional pain syndrome), it’s described as chronic pain after an injury, which usually develops in young girls. It can be short-term or long-term, depending on the case & Maya was on the chronic end with an immediate need for relief. They found the solution with the drug called Ketamine, a recreational drug used for pain relief. However, small doses didn’t provide much help and thus they had to go for a Ketamine Coma procedure.
Even though there were evident side effects, Maya was willing to go through it if it helped with the intense pain. Luckily it helped her in getting much better and being able to move her hands freely if not her complete legs. The medication continued for another year until Maya experienced intense stomach pains. Like any other individual, the parents took her to the hospital, what they didn’t expect was that could become the biggest regret of their lives.
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Johns Hopkins Hospital staff ignored the medical history of the patient and when the mother insisted on getting Ketamine doses to her daughter, they found it suspicious. The documentary shows how Maya was kept in the hospital for months under State custody and was treated in a way that the hospital deemed fit. The more Beata emphasised Maya’s previous diagnosis and needed treatment, she became the villain of the story in the eyes of the hospital staff and State officials.
The distraught mother was not allowed to even hug her kid & got limited phone calls with a number of restrictions & surveillance. When Beata saw how her every action to protect & get her child back was held against her, the only option she saw to free Maya from her suffering was to get her out of the picture completely. It did bring Maya back home but at the cost of her mother’s death, whom she never got to say goodbye or see in person, in the last distressful months.
It seemed like one rare case but eventually, more stories came up with similar things happening to them. It questions the children’s healthcare system, which is meant to protect them from evident harm or abuse at the hands of their guardians. But in numerous cases, the same system breaks loving families apart due to the people in charge who don’t bother to check all the facts & just want to treat every case with the same filter. Despite refusing Maya’s diagnosis of CRPS, it was found that the hospital was charging the insurance for the same illness only but lied to the face.
The Kowalski family has been consistently fighting for the damages done to them by the people in charge and the hospital but the odds haven’t aligned in their favour yet. Their court trial keeps getting delayed and slowly they are losing hope of even getting justice. If anything, one can sense the panic and frustration in Beata’s recorded voice calls with Maya, who only wanted to make sure she was safe and well.
Take Care of Maya Review
Take Care of Maya is a heartbreaking and infuriating documentary to watch. What’s more scary is that it happened to so many people, who are still dealing with the repercussions and could be happening to some in the present as well. The US healthcare is already infamous for its skyrocketing medical costs and now seeing how children’s healthcare is handled, one might think twice before even entering a hospital. Kowalski’s case is still pending in court and if this documentary could help them & other families alike, then that would be the best outcome to come out of this.
Take Care of Maya is currently streaming on Netflix.
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