*A College Park, Georgia, mother says her family has been devastated after an urgent care clinic wrongly reported that her 5-year-old daughter tested positive for multiple sexually transmitted diseases.
The shocking results prompted police and the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFACS) to launch investigations—only for later testing to prove the diagnosis was false, FOX 5 Atlanta reports.
The mother, whose identity remains private, said her daughter had been ill in April when she took her to a local urgent care center for treatment. Staff collected a urine sample, and the results came as an alarming surprise. “They told me they called me and when I went up there, they ended up telling me that she had trichomoniasis, gonorrhea, chlamydia and I knew right then that was incorrect because I protect my daughter,” she said.
As required by law, the urgent care notified police and DFACS after receiving the test results. The mother recalled the fear she felt when officers came to her home. “I couldn’t even breathe when they came to my house,” she said. “I was really thinking like they’re about to take my child away from me. I knew I was the best mom and nothing happened to her.”
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Subsequent tests conducted at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and through a follow-up order from the same urgent care both returned negative results. Despite the corrections, the family continues to deal with the emotional aftermath. “My daughter is 5 and you don’t want to put those kind of things on a five-year-old,” the mother said. “She’s still wondering why did that happen to her. Why did the doctor and the police come, why was she looked at down there?”
Attorney Stephen Fowler said his office is investigating how the misdiagnosis was handled. “This case is still being investigated,” Fowler said. “We’re still looking for results and answers and responses, but what we’ve seen so far there is evidence of some serious concerns of the handling of this child’s healthcare.”
An attorney for the urgent care said it relies on a third-party laboratory for testing and that the facility is “obligated to follow all laws ranging from protecting patient privacy to mandatory reporting requirements.”
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