Public Health Crisis Continues
Another day, another death of a child rocks the community. And we all continue on.
When will enough be enough?? WHEN WILL THE GOVERNOR DECLARE THIS A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY?
We are tracking deaths due to the FAILED CARA LAW. When will someone else start caring? In the past 5 years, we are seeing almost one fatality per month due to this failed law.
This week’s death in particular is disturbing as has been confirmed, this family had prior CYFD-involvement, and the department had been to this house to do a welfare check, just the week prior.
Local media continues to hold our elected officials accountable - wondering, when is enough enough? Local media has done a diligent job in continuing to hold our state accountable for the growing public health crisis impacting our state’s most vulnerable children.
In 2023, Rep Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena) pushed the then-CYFD Director to confirm “around 7 babies” deaths (3:59:05) directly related to CARA.
In addition, NM DOH that found in 2020 and 2021, “2560 CARA plans of care of care were recorded by New Mexico birthing hospital, “there were 15 deaths of infants with a plan of care among a total 218 New Mexico infant deaths.”
22 deaths in just the first 2.5 years of implementation. 2.5 years laters, our numbers are tracking over 49+
Nayisha Delaney (2.5 years old) is another child that fatefully and unnecessarily lost her life due to the changes in the CARA law in 2019.
As media continues to report, the department has not been able to confirm or deny the deaths of dozens more children who have died - who were born substance-exposed at birth (and thus legally should have been on a CARA plan). In 2023, Brittany Costello of KOB, did a follow-up story on the progress of CARA’s implementation now 4 years in — and reviewed autopsies from children born substance-exposed since 2019 (that have since died) and found that in the the year 2022 alone, she discovered 11 babies/toddlers under the age of 2 years old, died with substances in their system. Five other autopsies specifically mention prenatal exposure or parental substance abuse.
Nurses have been trying to sound the alarm on the failures and fatalities of this program for years. No one is listening.
We almost passed the CARA fix to the broken law in 2023, but it died in the House.
OUR KIDS ARE NOT OKAY
From the investigative reporting done by KOB, as well as tracking every single media report of child fatality in the State of New Mexico since 2019, we continue to call this a public health crisis and hope our elected officials take notice that with the rise of the fentanyl epidemic, this crisis is only growing.
We know that since the New Mexico Legislature passed CARA law in 2019 - at least 49 infants and children who were born substance exposed HAVE DIED due the failure of this program.
What we have learned through reviewing autopsies (publicly requested to OMI via FOIA/IPRA) is that currently, reviewing a child’s autopsy is the likely the most confident source to determine whether or not the child was on a CARA plan, and the only way to truly determine if the child was born substance exposed (and should have been on a CARA plan). In the 2023 report, the LFC determined their top 2 findings were that 1) The Vast Majority of CARA Families are Not Receiving Follow-up Support Services or Substance Use Treatment, and 2) CARA-Related Case Management, Tracking, Screening and Identification of SubstanceExposed Newborns Should be Improved .
More alarming, is that in the original 2021 DOH report, one of the findings was that “41.8% of families did not know what a [CARA] Plan of Care was or had no one talk to them about it in the hospital.”
Children born substance-exposed are dying later due to more substance exposure.
In reviewing the dozens of autopsies of children under 2 who have died since 2019, we can confidently say that most died due to a later substance-exposure. For example Ricky Renova died when he was just 18 months old. We found significant trends as kids become mobile around 18months -2years.
In the past two years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of deaths due to the fentanyl epedemic.
Children on CARA plans have also died due to suffocation and unsafe sleep with a parent who tested positive for drugs after their death.
Look, for example, at Baby Elijah’s story who died in June 2022 at 7-months old, “suffocated after falling between the bed and window sill at an Albuquerque home.“ According to reports, “Romero was sleeping in her apartment, when her seven-month-old fell between a bed and windowsill and died. The death was ruled accidental, but the medical examiner noted the infant tested positive for meth.” Victoria was sleeping while her 7month old child died; it is very likely she was passed out due to drugs. As part of the investigation into the death of the child, she and multiple children in the home (both her children and her grandchildren) tested positive for meth. In fact, while she was “sleeping” it was her 14 year old child who found the dead 7month old and tried to save the child - the 14 year old no longer lives with Victoria.
Safe Sleep deaths and SUID deaths are not often examined much further, but a deeper look at these autopsies and criminal investigations reveal that many of these “safe sleep” deaths involve a parent or caretaker who was intoxicated and unable to safely care for their child.
The State of New Mexico has currently issued a STATE ALERT for Safe Sleep Deaths (due to the rise in those deaths), as well as an alert about the “rising threat” of congenital syphilis. [This is significant because congenital syphilis is often an indication of additional risky behaviors including substance misuse.]
The New Mexico Child Fatality Review report published in 2023 was a combined report reviewing years 2015-2021, analyzed 163 deaths of New Mexico children under 18:
The report breaks those deaths down:
14%, or 23 children, died from child abuse, neglect, or homicide
Almost 23%, or 37 babies, died from Sudden Unexpected Infant Death
Youth suicide represented 27% of those deaths, or 44 children
Unintentional injury made up most of those deaths – representing 36%, or 59 child deaths
The experts investigating each of those deaths found that 85% of deaths, or 139 lives lost, were preventable.
The reason for multiple years of reporting was because in 2021, the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee issued a scathing report on “CYFD Child Welfare Member Concerns: Staffing, Safety, and Oversight” - including a finding that
“CYFD participates in existing child fatality review panels including the Child Fatality Review Board (CFRB) and the Maternal Mortality Review (MMR). However, reports to the public from these panels have been lacking with the CFRB not having released a report since 2015. Note that the CFRB indicates they are working on reporting for 2018 and 2019 which should be available later in 2021.
We have tried to IPRA more direct results and tracking on child abuse fatalities directly from CYFD but have been told “no records exist” on fatalities related to CARA.
In Fall of 2022, our now AFR-Fire Chief, Emily Jaramillo tried to sound the alarm on the rise in pediatric exposure to fentanyl — giving NARCAN 68 times to children under 1, including 23 being determined OVERDOSE.
The State of Washington is taking the growing threat of the fentanyl epidemic in youth and babies born substance exposed seriously; and actually drew attention to it in the response to the ACF Report of Child Maltreatment 2022.
In addition to reviewing autopsies for the past five years, we continue to receive first-hand reports from front-line providers. (This is how we confirmed that that child that died this week had prior involvement with CYFD.)
Until we change our CONFIDENTIALITY LAWS, we will continue to have opaque information - at best - regarding child fatalities, causes, and trends.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman said “We should be ashamed ourselves,” for this program and the known fatalities it has caused.
Another shocking CARA death is the death of Amelia Bennett. In April 2023, Christina Bennett, 31, brought her dead 5-month-old to her parents' house a day after relatives reported seeing the mother using drugs while holding the infant. Court records show Bennett was satisfactorily discharged from probation in June 2022; known to be actively using drugs, and had already lost custody of another child.
