Happy Family

Happy Ending After Cocaine Drama: “We Can Go Home!”

A happy ending to a month-long bureaucratic odyssey: Kathi and James are finally back home with their dad, Matthias.(Bild: Martin A. Jöchl)

23-year-old Kathi was desperate: After the cocaine drama involving her and her baby, child protective services once again cast doubt on a negative drug test. On Friday, the young woman from Lower Austria had to appear in court; authorities wanted to strip her of her parental rights. But...

Kathi sent this message at 12:34 p.m. in all caps: “WE GET TO GO HOME!” For the 23-year-old from Lower Austria, it’s surely one of the happiest moments of her life. This comes after the birth of baby James, who turned ten weeks old at exactly 9:39 a.m. on this hot Friday—just moments before the young mom had to show up at the Gänserndorf District Court following an odyssey through the bureaucracy. What had happened?

Test confusion keeps authorities busy
As reported, Kathi called an ambulance on June 22 to take her little one to Mistelbach Hospital. He wasn’t drinking in the extreme heat, wouldn’t eat—he was completely apathetic. The doctors did what they had to do. They tested the baby for everything. One test came back positive for cocaine; another, two hours later, came back negative. The mother was also tested: initially negative, then suddenly positive.

A subsequent urine test set off alarm bells at the hospital and with child protective services. Events took their course. On July 3 at 7:15 a.m., the young mother was torn from her family—separated from her partner Matthias and her in-laws—to “investigate a potential threat to the child’s welfare.” Shortly thereafter, she ended up in a mother-child shelter in Upper Austria, from which the pair was finally picked up a week ago by their attorneys, Manfred Arbacher-Stöger and Elisabeth Thaler. The reason: The hair test requested by the authorities came back negative on all levels. Nothing was detected.

“But the authorities wouldn’t even accept this result,” said the lawyer. “Suddenly, there was talk that the hair test from a renowned Viennese forensic toxicology lab didn’t have to be 100 percent accurate.” They claimed that dyeing one’s hair could skew the results. This was one of 30 arguments—or rather, orders—presented by the Youth Welfare Office, which two officials from the agency, along with their lawyer, submitted to the judge on Friday.

“The Youth Welfare Office lost on every front”
“Because suddenly the issue became whether to deny the mother’s ability to raise her child,” said attorney Thaler. Because she talked a lot at the mother-child shelter—and, according to the caregivers’ statements, “seemed insecure.” A 23-year-old mother with her first child—“200 kilometers away from her family; of course she’s insecure,” Ms. Rat is reported to have said. Regarding the hair drug test: “That’s the most reliable test.” Motion denied.

Of 30 motions, three ultimately remained that must be implemented: Kathi and James must undergo a drug test every two weeks for two months, receive support from “Early Intervention Services,” and, until the end of the year, be cared for by the mobile pediatric nursing service (MOKI). Arbacher-Stöger on the happy ending: “The Youth Welfare Office lost on every front.”