At first, I didn't know what to believe but after sifting through mounds of paperwork, and having many hours of conversations with officials, hospitals, and lawyers over two years, I discovered there is a monumental injustice occurring in Australia.
After a lifetime of mysterious and varied illnesses, Kathleen is accused of having Munchausen's Syndrome, also known as factitious disorder. People with Munchausen's purportedly induce illness in themselves for attention and sympathy.
This accusation, which she has never had the opportunity to fight in court, has ruined Kathleen's life.
One cold Tasmanian afternoon, her husband, son and mother assisted the blonde-haired Kathleen as she stumbled down the driveway at Launceston Hospital. The left side of her face had sagged as though melted and her left leg dragged behind her.
They were not strangers at the emergency ward, and they had a suspicion of how this would play out, but a fear of death drove them here regardless. Although it was clear that Kathleen had suffered a major stroke, hospital staff turned her away before she even took a seat in the waiting room. There was no treatment for her here.
This was not the first time Kathleen had been denied medical attention and it would not be the last. General practitioners, medical centres, hospitals and chemists have all washed their hands of her ongoing ailments. Kathleen Monahan is a branded woman.
"To think that I would do this to myself is ludicrous. Every minute of every day is affected. I'm in constant chronic pain, and I live in fear of death," tells Kathleen.
"I am a pariah in my community. Everywhere I turn for help just calls me a liar. They say I am self-harming and malingering for attention, but who would do that to themselves? It has cost me everything."
It was when Kathleen found Sydney general practitioner, who specialises in integrative medicine, Dr Michael Bolt*, that she thought she found hope.
"I seems to me that there's a ready-made view that if a person doesn't fit into a category or has a lot of extreme illnesses you end up blaming the person rather than the particular susceptibilities or health problems they acquire," says Dr Bolt, who is keeping his identity anonymous for fear of repercussions to his career.
Extensive testing revealed an unfortunate combination of unrelated genetic conditions and low-functioning variants of normal genes that predisposed Kathleen to a broad range of diseases, which resulted in her complex illness.
Dr Helen Hayward-Brown is a medical sociologist and anthropologist who specialises in investigating false allegations for Munchausen-by-proxy and advocating for accused mothers, an accusation more common than you might think.
"I see these poor women all the time," says Dr Hayward-Brown. "I get multiple women a week contacting me from all around the world who are fighting to clear their names and keep their families together.
"In nearly every case where a woman comes to me for help I discover their innocence. I get into the documentation and medical records to get to the heart of the story but I generally find women who are fighting the loudest and with outrage have nothing to hide. They are looking for assistance in defending their case against a system that is much stronger than they are."
There is no happy ending here, Kathleen's youngest child is still in state custody, her doctor is fearful that because he is speaking out in her defence they will take his licence - and she still can't get the medical care she desperately needs.
Launceston Hospital has been contacted by news.com.au for comment.
*Names changed.
