OTTAWA — The life of Gionni Lee Garlow, the baby born on the floor of an Ottawa jail cell last year, has come to a sudden end.
In the story of this short life, there are parts that have already outraged people across the country: the pregnant, young inmate’s ignored pleas, which led to the birth, and later to the firing of jail staff.
There are also parts of the story that are not yet known: whether the medical problems that killed the 13-month-old boy were related to the circumstances of his birth.
But what is clear at this moment is the part of Gionni’s story that is just deeply sad.
Cornwall police said that, shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday, they responded to a report of a child with no vital signs at a Cornwall residence. They took the boy to hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The police and the coroner’s office will investigate the sudden death, as a matter of course, to determine the cause and manner of death.
Julie Bilotta was in custody at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre when the then-26-year-old gave birth to her son on Sept. 29, 2012. Bilotta, who was eight months pregnant at the time, has said she tried to convince jail staff that she was in labour, but was forced to give birth in her cell after nursing staff refused to believe her.
In the days after the birth, Bilotta told the Elizabeth Fry Society, which advocates for female prisoners, that guards at the jail responded to her pleas by telling her she was making too much noise and moving her to a segregated cell. Bilotta was allegedly also told by a nurse at the jail that she was only in “phantom labour.”
While she was being moved, a guard allegedly told her she shouldn’t have become pregnant if she couldn’t deal with pain, and it would only get worse when the “real” labour began.
Bilotta also told the Elizabeth Fry representative that the nurse only believed the labour was real when one of the baby’s feet emerged in the breech birth, hours after her first complaints.
With strict conditions, Bilotta’s lawyer was able to arrange for her release from custody, where she’d been held to face fraud and drug charges, and she was reunited with her three-week-old son.
“I can’t get over it. He’s so perfect,” she told reporters at the time. “We’re just looking forward to getting some mother-and-son bonding.”
That reunion was 10 days after Thanksgiving last year and Bilotta, though still upset about her ordeal, said she was trying to think about what she had.
“I’m going to focus on the positive,” she said. “And I’ll get through it.”
But over the Thanksgiving long weekend, tragedy struck.
Gionni had suffered from reported prior health problems. Shortly after his birth, the Citizen reported that while the baby appeared to be healthy, he did have some initial breathing difficulties.
In a Facebook post from Oct. 6 of this year, Bilotta wrote that her baby had been in the hospital overnight, but was released. When offered advice from a friend on the social media website, Bilotta responded by saying her son had been having breathing problems so the hospital kept the baby overnight to be monitored.
Since Sunday, dozens of messages of condolences have been posted on Bilotta’s Facebook page — where she identifies herself as Julie Dakota Garlow — after she posted a status update lamenting the loss of her son.
“How could this happen to us life will never be the same!” Bilotta wrote. “We love you Gionni mommy will be with you soon.”
An autopsy for the baby is scheduled for later this week.
Bilotta has had legal trouble since Gionni’s birth and was arrested again in February of this year for breaching her release conditions. She was given a suspended sentence and credit for time served.
The jailhouse birth led the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services to launch an internal disciplinary proceeding. As a result, staff at the jail were reprimanded, suspended and fired. The ministry also came up with a 21-point “action plan” for prisoner health care.
Bryonie Baxter, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society, said it was much too early to speculate about whether Gionni’s death was linked to his mother’s treatment in the jail.
“We’ll have to wait to find out cause of death before anyone draws any conclusions,” said Baxter. “It’s impossible to know that until we know the cause of death.”
The baby, who lived with Bilotta at the Elizabeth Fry Society for many months after his birth in the jail, was “a very good natured, sweet little soul,” Baxter said.
“He was such a sweet baby,” said Baxter. “Really he was quite a special little baby and deeply loved here by he staff and the other women as well.”
“We’re all deeply sddened and in shock here,” she said.
Dawn Moore, a law professor at the Carleton University, said Sunday the story of Gionni’s end was “heartbreaking.”
She said that while it is still unknown whether his health problems were related to the conditions of his birth, news of his death “underscores the tragedy of his life that he was born in such incredibly unhappy circumstances and then lived for such a short time.”
Moore added that she hopes more attention will be paid to the treatment of women in the corrections system.
“It’s sad that it takes a baby dying for us to wake up again and pay attention to the fact that these kinds of things happen,” she said.
Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com
Author: Gary Dimmock, Laura Armstrong and Zev Singer
In the story of this short life, there are parts that have already outraged people across the country: the pregnant, young inmate’s ignored pleas, which led to the birth, and later to the firing of jail staff.
There are also parts of the story that are not yet known: whether the medical problems that killed the 13-month-old boy were related to the circumstances of his birth.
But what is clear at this moment is the part of Gionni’s story that is just deeply sad.
Cornwall police said that, shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday, they responded to a report of a child with no vital signs at a Cornwall residence. They took the boy to hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The police and the coroner’s office will investigate the sudden death, as a matter of course, to determine the cause and manner of death.
Julie Bilotta was in custody at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre when the then-26-year-old gave birth to her son on Sept. 29, 2012. Bilotta, who was eight months pregnant at the time, has said she tried to convince jail staff that she was in labour, but was forced to give birth in her cell after nursing staff refused to believe her.
In the days after the birth, Bilotta told the Elizabeth Fry Society, which advocates for female prisoners, that guards at the jail responded to her pleas by telling her she was making too much noise and moving her to a segregated cell. Bilotta was allegedly also told by a nurse at the jail that she was only in “phantom labour.”
While she was being moved, a guard allegedly told her she shouldn’t have become pregnant if she couldn’t deal with pain, and it would only get worse when the “real” labour began.
Bilotta also told the Elizabeth Fry representative that the nurse only believed the labour was real when one of the baby’s feet emerged in the breech birth, hours after her first complaints.
With strict conditions, Bilotta’s lawyer was able to arrange for her release from custody, where she’d been held to face fraud and drug charges, and she was reunited with her three-week-old son.
“I can’t get over it. He’s so perfect,” she told reporters at the time. “We’re just looking forward to getting some mother-and-son bonding.”
That reunion was 10 days after Thanksgiving last year and Bilotta, though still upset about her ordeal, said she was trying to think about what she had.
“I’m going to focus on the positive,” she said. “And I’ll get through it.”
But over the Thanksgiving long weekend, tragedy struck.
Gionni had suffered from reported prior health problems. Shortly after his birth, the Citizen reported that while the baby appeared to be healthy, he did have some initial breathing difficulties.
In a Facebook post from Oct. 6 of this year, Bilotta wrote that her baby had been in the hospital overnight, but was released. When offered advice from a friend on the social media website, Bilotta responded by saying her son had been having breathing problems so the hospital kept the baby overnight to be monitored.
Since Sunday, dozens of messages of condolences have been posted on Bilotta’s Facebook page — where she identifies herself as Julie Dakota Garlow — after she posted a status update lamenting the loss of her son.
“How could this happen to us life will never be the same!” Bilotta wrote. “We love you Gionni mommy will be with you soon.”
An autopsy for the baby is scheduled for later this week.
Bilotta has had legal trouble since Gionni’s birth and was arrested again in February of this year for breaching her release conditions. She was given a suspended sentence and credit for time served.
The jailhouse birth led the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services to launch an internal disciplinary proceeding. As a result, staff at the jail were reprimanded, suspended and fired. The ministry also came up with a 21-point “action plan” for prisoner health care.
Bryonie Baxter, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society, said it was much too early to speculate about whether Gionni’s death was linked to his mother’s treatment in the jail.
“We’ll have to wait to find out cause of death before anyone draws any conclusions,” said Baxter. “It’s impossible to know that until we know the cause of death.”
The baby, who lived with Bilotta at the Elizabeth Fry Society for many months after his birth in the jail, was “a very good natured, sweet little soul,” Baxter said.
“He was such a sweet baby,” said Baxter. “Really he was quite a special little baby and deeply loved here by he staff and the other women as well.”
“We’re all deeply sddened and in shock here,” she said.
Dawn Moore, a law professor at the Carleton University, said Sunday the story of Gionni’s end was “heartbreaking.”
She said that while it is still unknown whether his health problems were related to the conditions of his birth, news of his death “underscores the tragedy of his life that he was born in such incredibly unhappy circumstances and then lived for such a short time.”
Moore added that she hopes more attention will be paid to the treatment of women in the corrections system.
“It’s sad that it takes a baby dying for us to wake up again and pay attention to the fact that these kinds of things happen,” she said.
Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com
Author: Gary Dimmock, Laura Armstrong and Zev Singer
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