General > Frauds
Phil Landis & Nemenhah Band, an Oklehueva or ONAC chapter
Diana:
Just thought I'd post a little good news.
http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2009/11/07/20091107forcedchemo-ON.html
Minnesota teen who fled chemo is now cancer-free
Nov. 7, 2009 02:58 PM
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS - A Minnesota teen who fled the state to avoid chemotherapy has finished his cancer treatment.
Daniel Hauser of Sleepy Eye underwent his final radiation session Friday, and his family says the 13-year-old is cancer-free.
Daniel gained national attention when he stopped treatment after one session in February and fled, citing his religious beliefs. After he returned, he underwent court-ordered chemo to treat Hodgkin's lymphoma, then started radiation therapy.
Family spokesman Dan Zwakman tells KSTP-TV everything is going as planned. A call to the family's home from The Associated Press rang unanswered Saturday.
A Brown County judge has asked for reports from Brown County Family Services and Daniel's doctor. If everything looks good, the case will likely be closed.
Superdog:
That's excellent. My best hope is that through all this, his mother had an epiphany of common sense. Here's to a long healthy and productive life Daniel!
Superdog
educatedindian:
Very disturbing news that happened back in October but hasn't gotten much attention. I just got contacted by a reporter in Springfield. One of Nemenah's "healers" had claimed to be a midwife. She's been charged with manslaughter for causing the death of a baby.
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http://www.cafemom.com/group/416/forums/read/12454054/Midwife_charged_with_Involuntary_manslaughter
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A midwife from Schell City is charged with causing the death of a newborn baby nearly a year ago. Greene County prosecutors believe Elaine Diamond should have sent the baby's mother to a hospital sooner than two days after labor started.
Diamond is charged with first-degree involuntary manslaughter or, in the alternative, first-degree child endangerment. For a conviction, both charges carry a possible prison sentence as long as seven years. By charging "in the alternative," prosecutors give a judge or a jury a choice, based on how the facts of the case emerge.
The manslaughter charge says "the defendant recklessly caused the death" of the baby by failing to seek adequate medical intervention" when the "birth became prolonged and/or complicated." The child endangerment charge says "the defendant knowingly acted in a manner that created a substantial risk to the life (of the baby) by failing to seek adequate medical intervention."
The probable cause statement used as the basis of the charge says the baby, identified in court papers as both R.D. and R.G., was born on Oct. 26, 2009, after 48 hours of labor at a home in Springfield. The mother's water broke on Oct. 24 and Diamond, the mother's midwife, and Diamond's daughter attended to her before Diamond decided that she needed to go to a hospital three hours after the baby's head crowned. The birth went no further at the family's home, despite the mother "actively pushing" for those three hours.
The baby's head finally emerged as the father drove the mother to the hospital. A doctor said the baby was blue when it was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, "a common condition that is easily corrected at hospitals."
R.D. died at the hospital about four days later after his parents chose to take him off a ventilator that was keeping him alive. A doctor told an investigator that the baby likely would have been born safely by cesarean section if the mother had come to the hospital soon after her water broke.
According to the PC statement, another doctor who was present at the birth, Dr. David Redfern, said Diamond likely should have allowed the mother to push for no more than two hours before seeking medical help. Redfern, who talked to Diamond at the hospital, said the midwife told him that she knew the baby's heart rate was slowing down, which the doctor said is "a clear sign that the baby needs to go to the hospital."
In the probable cause statement, a detective wrote that Redfern questioned whether Diamond is properly certified as a midwife. He also said Redfern believed Diamond improperly tried to help the mother by giving her vitamin supplements and herbal remedies during the birth.
"I asked him why he thought (the mother) was not able to deliver R.D. at home and Dr. Redfern stated he thought it was the inexperience and panic of the midwife. He said this because, after talking to Dr. Mullins, the ER doctor that delivered R.D. in the parking lot, that Dr. Mullins stated he was able to deliver the baby very easily with gentle downward traction.
"Dr. Redfern stated during the interview that, in his opinion, Elaine Diamond was negligent in her care of (the mother and baby). Diamond told Redfern that she was not collaborating with a physician, but did have a 'friendly' doctor that she could contact. He said that certified nurse midwifes (CNM) would have access to lab work and ultrasounds. CNMs work closely with doctors and don't perform home births.
"Dr. Redfern then showed me the paperwork I had previously seen showing that Elaine Diamond had been banned from praticing midwifery in the State of Colorado."
Diamond wrote the detective a letter two weeks after the baby died.
"The letter contained a copy of the front and back of a business card. The card was issued by the Nemenhah Band and Native American Traditional Organization (Oklevucha Native American Church of Sanpete) and it certified Elaine Diamond as a Medicine Woman/Traditional Spiritual Leader. This was effective as of 2009 and was issued by Cloudpiler, the Elected Principle Medicine Chief," the detective wrote.
"I later looked up the internet address nemenhah.org and noticed that the address was a P.O. box in Stockton, MO, which is where Diamond's P.O. Box is located."
The detective later got information from Colorado that Diamond had "engaged in a midwife birth of a child without being licensed by the State of Colorado or by the American College of Midwifes. During this child birth, a complication ensued when the placenta could not be properly delivered. Diamond then administered three doses of pitocin to try and stop the bleeding. When this did not work emergency personnel were called and the mother was transported to the hospital and given two pints of blood. Diamond and her co-worker fled the scene prior to EMS being able to interview them."
The detective, Cpl. Eric Reece, says a medical examiner concludes R.D. died from "anoxia (absence of oxygen) following a difficult delivery." The medical examiner found no other "abnormality, perinatal infection, or other problem to explain the difficult delivery."
A judge issued a warrant for Diamond on Friday and set her bond at $25,000. A condition of her bond will be that she not practice midwifery, not practice medicine, and not be present at the birth of any child, or prenatal or postpartum care."
educatedindian:
Longer version of the story with more information.
I've also seen the probable cause statement by police. Diamond apparently stayed behind to clean up the scene while the couple went to the hospital. So evidence was lost.
Diamond also made some other obvious mistakes like not checking for Group B Strep and thinking you could treat that with Vitamin C and Echinacea. She also gave the woman demartini blue and kohash.
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Springfield News-Leader (Missouri)
October 9, 2010 Saturday
Midwife facing criminal charges after baby's death
BYLINE: By, Kathryn Wall
SECTION: MAIN; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 806 words
News-Leader
A Schell City woman who called herself a midwife faces criminal charges after a child died of what medical professionals called preventable causes.
Authorities allege Elaine Marie Diamond, 52, allowed a woman to spend almost three days in labor before taking the mother to the hospital. The baby died days later because of complications from the birth.
Diamond has been charged with involuntary manslaughter with the alternative of child endangerment.
According to court documents, the mother text messaged Diamond Oct. 26, 2009, when her water broke. The documents then describe Diamond "eventually" showing up at the house around 2 p.m.
The mother spent the next two days in a birthing pool in her living room in labor.
By Oct. 26 the baby had crowned, but after three hours of actively pushing, the baby had still not been born, the mother told authorities.
By this time, both the mother and father were asking if they should go to the hospital, but Diamond allegedly said she had things under control.
Minutes later, Diamond told the couple to go to the hospital.
The baby was born in the couple's car in the St. John's Hospital parking lot.
"(The mother) said that when he was born, the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and he was blue," the probable cause statement said.
The baby was put on a ventilator and suffered some brain damage. The parents later decided to take him off life support four days later.
Several red flags
Two doctors were interviewed in the time after the baby was admitted to the hospital.
The first doctor, a pediatrician, said the baby's wrapped umbilical cord was an easily corrected problem that could have been taken care of at the hospital.
"Dr. Stevens also stated that (the mother) should not have been allowed to labor at home as long as Diamond let her," the probable cause statement said.
Springfield police also interviewed Dr. David Redfern, who delivered the mother's placenta and was present when she came to the hospital.
"Dr. Redfern began the interview by stating that there were several events in (the mother's) childbirth that were of concern," the probable cause statement said. "The first was that she had a ruptured membrane for over 48 hours. Dr. Redfern stated that this was always a red flag."
He said the second concern was the umbilical cord situation, although he said it's not uncommon for an umbilical cord to get wrapped around a child's neck during birth.
"Dr. Redfern stated that, in his opinion, the prolonged labor was high risk and should not have been dealt with outside of the hospital," the statement said.
Not a certified midwife
Redfern said he had a conversation with Diamond at the hospital, where she told him she was a certified practicing midwife. Authorities say she's not.
Debbie Pulley, director of public education and advocacy for the North American Registry of Midwives, said her organization has not certified Diamond as a midwife.
The registry's requirements to be certified as a midwife include helping at at least 20 births, being the primary delivery person at at least 20 births, doing at least 75 prenatal exams, examining at least 20 newborns, doing 40 postpartum exams and taking an 8-hour written exam.
But Pulley said Diamond can still call herself a midwife even if she isn't certified by any organization.
"If she calls herself a midwife, she is a midwife," Pulley said.
Documents she provided as part of the investigation describe her as a medicine woman.
It's unclear whether her medicine woman/traditional spiritual leader card certification -- issued by Chief Cloudpiler of the Nemenhah Band and Native American Traditional Organization -- qualifies under Missouri's law involving midwives.
In 2007, a provision in a Missouri health insurance required some type of medical background before being able to perform a birth. The provision was struck down in 2008 as unconstitutional.
The current law requires a "ministerial or tocological certification."
"Inexperience, panic"
Police asked Redfern why he thought Diamond couldn't deliver the baby.
"Dr. Redfern stated he thought it was the inexperience and panic of the midwife," the report said. "He said this because after talking to Dr. Mullins, the ER doctor that delivered (the baby) in the parking lot, that Dr. Mullins stated he was able to deliver the baby very easily with gentle downward traction."
Not the first difficulty
Court documents show that Diamond has had previous complaints about her midwife practices.
Prosecutors allege another incident earlier this year also endangered a mother and child. Details about that incident weren't available Friday.
Diamond is barred from practicing midwifery in Colorado after an incident where a woman almost bled to death. In Colorado, a midwife has to be licensed with the state, which Diamond wasn't.
Reporter Sarah Okeson contributed to this report.
educatedindian:
--- Quote from: educatedindian on August 06, 2008, 02:13:24 am ---Those so called "elders" are quite a bunch....
His Excellency Charles McWilliams-Apparently his title came from the Pope. He runs a health center in the Caribbean island of St Kitts.
http://www.thestkittsnevisobserver.com/jun1308/news8a.htm
So why is one of the "Pope's knights" from St Kitts part of an alleged Native band in Utah?
--- End quote ---
McWilliams emailed us and denies he has any involvement at all with Nemenhah.
Since Nemenah and Landis claim as "elders" a man who passed away many years ago, it's entirely possible he could be lying about McWilliams and possibly some or all of the other "elders."
Landis is a convicted serial con man after all.
I also urged McWilliams to contact Nemenhah and get his name removed from their site.
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