Foster Mom Arrested After Girl Dies From Fentanyl Overdose
Six-year-old Taylor Webster’s neck hurt. So her foster mother, Joanne Alvarez, gave her some Baby Motrin: good parenting.
But when the Motrin didn’t help, Alvarez attached a pain patch of prescription Fentanyl to the child’s skin: bad parenting. Bad, bad, bad parenting.
Taylor was found unconscious in her East Harlem apartment yesterday afternoon. She was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Alvarez was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide. And I can’t decide whether or not I think that’s a good thing. I mean, it seems pretty clear that Alvarez was just trying to help Taylor feel better – if she wanted to poison the kid, why start with Baby Motrin? But the leap to an adult dose of Fentanyl is hard to fathom. Fentanyl is a hard-core analgesic that’s prescribed when milder, oral painkillers have failed. One dose controls pain for up to three days.
There’s no doubt that children depend on their guardians to keep them safe, and adults need to be very careful when administering medicine to children. But I can’t help but ask myself whether a Park Avenue mom who accidentally overdosed her kid would also be charged with criminally negligent homicide, or whether the police would simply tsk, “Hasn’t she suffered enough?”
The deal is this child was in fostercare because her Mother abadoned her and left her in the care of a man who died while caring for Taylor…this man was not Taylor’s birth Father. The foster mother was a loving and caring Mother to all of her foster children…I know because I have been around them in many social situations. The children were kept clean, well fed and were always very happy. What happened to Taylor was tragic and it is something that the family will have to live with forever. I think that punishmnt is enough for all involved. I wonder if it were her birth child would people be so hard on her? I bet they wouldn’t.
In response to a comments on this blog is totally untrue. I wish people would get all of the facts before talking. I understand people are going to have opinions, but don’t right stuff you know nothing about.
THIS IS A TERIBLE ACCIDENT, THIS YOUNG GIRL WAS LOVED BY HER FOSTER FAMILY. THIS FOSTER PARENT IS IN JAIL, WONDERING WHAT THEY WILL DO FOR HER BABIES FUNERAL. I HAPPEN TO KNOW THIS FAMILY, AND THIS SI VERY TRAGIC. SHE WAS A GREAT MOTHER, A GREAT FOSTER PARENT. I GUESS I WOULD CALL IT POOR LACK OF JUDGMENT AS TO THE PATCH, BUT I AGREE WITH EVERYONE, HAD IT BEEN SOMEONE ELSE, THEY WOULD NOT HAVE CHARGED HER.
YEAH WHY WAS SHE IN A FOSTER HOME? WHY DID SHE NOT HAVE FAMILY. WHY DID THE GRANDMA NOT CARE ENOUGH ABOUT HERE GRANDBABY?
Why was the child in foster care anyway? I happen to know that the paternal grandmother lives in Queens and works in lower Manhattan. In fact, she was at work all day today. The child had been in the custody of her father until he suffered an untimely death via a seizure which resulted in him hitting his head while in the shower and thereaftern resulting in his demise. This all took place approximately five years ago.
Terribly tragic story, but I agree. Park Ave mom would not be charged.
I have to ask, though, can foster parents be sued by the birth parents for stuff like this? That’s if the foster parents had money to pay.
Stupid as the foster mother’s error was, I had the same question myself when I saw it yesterday. I think if it had been the Park avenue mom, the whole thing would have been a “tragic accident”