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American Morning
Attorney Ellen Lawton Discusses Program That Mixes Family Law With Medicine
Aired September 05, 2001 - 11:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Doctors at a Boston hospital have stepped outside the medical arena to help some of their patients recover. They've enlisted a team of attorneys. This unique program is aimed at needy children, and so far, it's getting rave reviews.
Let's get more on the story from our Boston bureau chief Bill Delaney.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my math book.
BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At four months old, already suffering from severe asthma, now healthy 7-year-old Shanice Bouyer (ph) was abandoned, left to the care of her great- grandmother, now 67-year-old Charlotte Hogan.
CHARLOTTE HOGAN, GREAT-GRANDMOTHER: She could hardly, you know, keep her breath, you know, just keep -- like that, you know.
DELANEY: Bewildered, having not raised a baby in 30 years or so, with hardly any money, no car, Charlotte Hogan faced alone trying to help Shanice get well.
(on camera): Alone, at least, until Charlotte Hogan discovered a unique program here, at Boston Medical Center, where doctors and lawyers believe healing's about more than just what happens inside a hospital's four walls.
(voice-over): Back in 1993, Dr. Barry Zuckerman got fed up sending children he helped get better back to the same inner-city environments that helped make them sick in the first place.
DR. BARRY ZUCKERMAN, BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER: We have kids who aren't getting the health care they need because they don't have health insurance. We have a lot of malnourished children here. We have a lot of children who, you know, live in environments that aren't safe at home.
DELANEY: Dr. Zuckerman decided to fight back as no hospital had before, enlisting a team of lawyers as an integral part of the ongoing process of getting well.
Ellen Lawton is now project director of Boston Medical Center's one-of-a-kind Family Advocacy Program.
ELLEN LAWTON, FAMILY ADVOCACY PROGRAM: Societal ills were perpetuating the illness, so they were getting prescriptions for ear infections when they were going home to a house that had no heat.
DELANEY: But with the advent of the program, poor families who left hospital care began receiving help, winning disability payments, improving unsafe or unhealthy housing, accessing family leave.
And Charlotte Hogan, from simple lifts to complex legalese, began navigating the system.
HOGAN: They would even take you down to city hall and help you fill out the papers.
DELANEY: Papers for, among other things, her struggle to keep custody of Shanice from a mother, Mrs. Hogan says, with drug problems. And Ellen Lawton realized the great-grandmother, as a widow, was due substantial, additional social security payments.
HOGAN: She spoke up for me. And a lot of people need her. We need her! She's like an angel from heaven to us, you know what I mean?
DELANEY: Mrs. Hogan believes she'd have wound up broke, maybe homeless, and with a child who never got well without the advocacy program.
At least 10 other hospitals now plan similar efforts, enlisting lawyers to pick up where doctors leave off.
Bill Delaney, CNN, Boston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's talk more about this unique program in Boston.
We are joined by Ellen Lawton. She's an attorney who heads the Family Advocacy Program at Boston Medical Center, referred to as an angel, as we heard in that piece.
Ellen, thanks so much for being here.
It's sort of an interesting connection that you've made. I mean, you have people in need, sick children, families that aren't doing very well. It doesn't automatically strike me that someone would say you need a lawyer. Actually, I think we're actually having some audio problems there with our guest, so we're going to take a short break here. I do apologize for that. Well, try to get the technical glitches worked out and be right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MCEDWARDS: Want to get back to guest where we had technical problems a few minutes ago. We were telling you a story about a program in Boston that involves children who end up in the hospital, but then who go to a difficult home situation and end up coming back sick. A group of lawyers -- that's right, lawyers -- got together to help these kids and their families out.
We're joined now by Ellen Lawton. She's an attorney who heads the Family Advocacy Program at Boston Medical Center.
Thanks so much for be being here. You can hear us now, and we can hear you.
LAWTON: OK, great.
MCEDWARDS: Why lawyers?
LAWTON: Why lawyers?
MCEDWARDS: Yes.
LAWTON: We think it's an really important part of good preventive health care for kids. It doesn't make sense to keep treating the illnesses when they keep surfacing because of other conditions in families' lives.
MCEDWARDS: Just remind us about some of the ways you've been able to help families get rid of those conditions?
LAWTON: One of the issues that we work a lot on is housing for kids who have asthma. It's a chronic problem, especially for children living in substandard housing. So the physician treats the asthma, and we help to treat the poor housing conditions that may contribute or exacerbate the asthma.
MCEDWARDS: So you get in there and help people understand what their legal rights are, perhaps what they're entitled to in programs, help them work with their landlords -- that kind of thing.
LAWTON: Right. We try to do advocacy using the physician's clinical diagnoses of a child.
MCEDWARDS: How do you decide which families to help?
LAWTON: Unfortunately, our services could be provided to virtually every family that we see.
MCEDWARDS: I can imagine.
LAWTON: Most families have some unmet legal needs. But we try to address the issues that are going to help stabilize a family as quickly as possible.
MCEDWARDS: Do you ever get any resistance from families?
LAWTON: No, the families really welcome this service, especially because they attribute a lot of credibility to our work because they really trust their doctors; they trust the pediatricians treating their children, so when the pediatrician says you should talk to this lawyer, they are, generally, very welcoming of the service.
MCEDWARDS: In a nutshell, Ellen, what contribution would you say the program's made?
LAWTON: I think we've really helped to improve families' health and children's health as a result of work we're able to do in the hospital setting.
MCEDWARDS: Ellen Lawton of the Boston Medical Center, thanks very much for your time. We appreciate it.
LAWTON: Thank you.
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