Justina Pelletier’s legal case may have ended in 2020, when she and her family lost a civil suit against Boston Children’s Hospitalbut the fight for the Connecticut woman, now 23, to stay healthy continues.
“My understanding right now is that she is recovering well,” said John Martin, Pelletier’s attorney. “She’s happy, she’s healthy and she’s doing better, but of course she continues to deal with very significant mental and emotional trauma.”
Pelletier, her family and Martin are all featured in a new Peacock documentary, “The battle for Justina Pelletier.”
The four-part documentary chronicles Pelletier’s mysterious health issues that landed him at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2013.
“Doctors at Boston Children’s were concerned about cases of Munchausen by proxy and medical abuse of children,” said David Metzler, director of records.
The state took custody of Justina, then just a child, for more than a year.
“There were a lot of protests, one of which was started by Anonymous and a guy named Marty Gottesfeld, who attacked the Boston Children’s Hospital server in protest and took it down,” Metzler said.
Metzler, a Massachusetts native, heard about the story from a friend.
“We felt like it was a good story to tell,” he said. “There were a lot of important issues at the center of it, and just a lot of fascinating characters.”
The family was on board.
“We wanted to make sure it was a real, legitimate story that dealt with a very serious issue in a very serious way,” Martin said.
Boston Children’s Hospital commented on the filing.
“We strive to act in the best interest of every child who comes to us for care, as we did with Justina Pelletier,” the hospital said. “The jury’s verdict confirmed what we have always believed: that our clinicians provided Justina with high-quality, compassionate care and acted in the best interest of her health and well-being at all times.”
Metzler says he hopes viewers can see both sides after watching the series.
“It would be my hope that people look at it and look at it with empathy — empathy for everyone involved,” he said. “And hopefully what comes through is that there’s a lot more to a story that sounds wild in the news. There’s a lot of very human parts to it.”
