Dignity for every child: Our statement on the actions of hospital staff towards the Yeremeyev family
The Arc of Washington State is heartbroken and outraged by the account reported this week by The Seattle Times.
In September 2024, Aleksandr and Nataliya Yeremeyev were visiting Salem, Oregon, when their 8-month-old son became acutely ill. He was born with Down syndrome and other significant health conditions, and had already spent most of his short life in a hospital. He died at Salem Health.
According to the family’s lawsuit, what followed was unthinkable. They allege that hospital staff kept them from their son while they waited for a medical examiner who never came, told them a funeral home would be “too expensive,” and then directed them to lay their baby’s body across the back seat of their car and drive four hours home to Seattle. They left with a handwritten note on a prescription pad as the only record of his death. Washington’s Department of Health notes that transporting remains into the state without a burial-transit permit is against state law.
Salem Health has said it followed the family’s wishes, hospital policy, and Oregon law. The court will weigh the facts. But the core question the family’s attorneys have asked is one our community cannot ignore: why were these particular parents treated this way?
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and their families, know too well what it means to have a life treated as worth less. We see it in denied treatments, in “do not resuscitate” pressures, and in the quiet assumptions that shape decisions about care. Whether or not disability bias played a role here, this family deserved compassion, clear guidance, and basic dignity. By their account, they received none of it.
We are calling for answers from Salem Health about the policies and decisions that led to this family’s experience, including whether their son’s disability influenced how he and his family were treated. Oregon health authorities must review its hospital procedures when a patient from out of state dies, so no family is ever again left to transport a loved one on their own. This should lead to a commitment from every hospital to treat people with disabilities, and their families, with equal dignity at every stage of care, including at the end of life.
To the Yeremeyev family: we are so sorry. Your son mattered. We stand with you.
Seattle Times article: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/hospital-staff-made-seattle-family-drive-dead-son-home-lawsuit-says/
