Before he nearly starved to death, Malik Staton was a goofy, charming 12-year-old with an infectious smile, good grades and the kind of potential that teachers get excited about.
But life at home was difficult. His parents got divorced. His father went to prison, and Malik took on the role of the man of the house.
Malik was stoic at first, telling his mom that he would help her with his five younger siblings. But the self-imposed pressure was too much. Malik stopped eating.
As his weight dropped, the boy’s behavior became more and more desperate. He raged when one of his brothers or sisters got too close to him. On one occasion, he struck his mother. On another, he disappeared overnight.
Last January, after Malik had lost 27 pounds in eight weeks, his mother Anya took him to see his pediatrician, who was shocked by the boy’s appearance — and by his pulse rate, which had dropped to 70, then 60 beats a minute from a normal peak of about 100.
The doctor tried to get Malik into therapy through a program that would accept the family’s Medicaid insurance, but the boy fell outside the agency’s mandated treatment boundaries.
He did not fit the profile of a chronically troubled youth. He wasn’t addicted to drugs or hanging out with a rough crowd. Malik was simply starving.
And the health care system that Florida has in place to help such children and their families very nearly let him die.
[For more of this story, written by Maggie Clark, go to http://www.centerforhealthjour...ds-24-billion-battle]
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