Last month, Dr. Bertha Mayorquin, a New Jersey physician, told her soon-to-be ex-husband that there was a change in plans. After two weeks of providing treatment by video as a precaution
But when she left work on a Friday to pick up her two daughters for the weekend, her husband presented her with a court order granting him sole temporary custody of the girls. His lawyer had convinced a judge that Dr. Mayorquin could expose the children, 11 and 8, to Covid-19.
The doctor, an internist, had intended to spend the weekend celebrating her younger daughter’s birthday. Instead, she spent it assembling 50 pages of paperwork to try to reverse the order.
“Many people working in the hospitals — doctors, nurses, so many of us — are parents,” said Dr. Mayorquin, whose hospital had asked her to starting treat non-coronavirus patients at an urgent care center to ease the burden of the pandemic. “Are our children going to be taken away from us because we are on the front lines helping people?”
That question is arising across the United States as a growing number of parents have begun withholding access to their children from former spouses or partners over fears of infection, according to families, lawyers and judges.
For health care and other essential workers, some say they shouldn’t be punished for doing crucial services. Their counterparts say that the jobs pose too great a risk to other family members.