A Miami doctor says she no longer has custody of her 4-year-old daughter after her rights were taken away from her for treating coronavirus patients.
CNN reports that Dr. Theresa Greene, an emergency medicine doctor, claims that it was discriminatory for a judge to take her rights as a parent away from her. Greene’s daughter is now in the full-time care of her father, who Green divorced around two years ago. The girl’s father asked for sole custody until the coronavirus pandemic is over.
“I think it’s not fair, it’s cruel to ask me to choose between my child and the oath I took as a physician,” Greene said. “I won’t abandon my team at work or the patients who will increasingly look to me to save their lives in the coming weeks, but it’s torture.”
The little girl has no idea what’s going on, Greene added. The child wants to know when she’ll be able to see her mother again.
“She knows Mommy’s sad… [but] she doesn’t understand. I really worry about the toll that’s going to take on her. I want her, when she grows up, to be proud of me by abiding by the oath that I took when I went into medicine, but I also know that she needs me now.”
Circuit Court Judge Bernard Shapiro ruled last week that the child should be with her father if Greene continues to treat and be around people with COVID-19. Greene, however, who said she wears full PPE while treating patients, claimed that had she still been married, the ruling would have never happened.
“If I was married I’d be given the opportunity to go home to my child, no one could tell me I shouldn’t do that.”
Since she doesn’t know when the pandemic will be over, Greene said she doesn’t know when she’ll be able to see her child again. Greene is now appealing the judge’s order.
“I know what I am doing,” Greene explained. “This isn’t the first communicable disease I’ve encountered.”
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[Feature Photo: Pixabay]
