SOCORRO, N.M. (KRQE) – A lawsuit blames the New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department for the drug overdose death of a two-year-old boy.

In 2020, CYFD received a report that Ricky Renova had been born addicted to drugs and tested positive for meth and opiates. According to the lawsuit, nurses said they moved the baby out of his mother, Elisa Renova’s hospital room because they felt the baby wasn’t safe after she allegedly smoked drugs in her room. Nurses also noted his mother never came to visit the baby.

Despite the courts already taking away Renova’s other two children, CYFD sent the baby home with his mother who was supposed to follow a safe care plan. “It referred them to services outside to help his mother and him thrive and make sure he was provided a safe environment. Once he left the hospital with that plan of safe care, no one touched it,” said Attorney Matt Beck. The toddler died two years later of a fentanyl overdose.

The attorney on behalf of Renova’s estate said prior to Ricky’s birth in 2019, CYFD pushed a change in the law that would keep babies born with drugs in their system with their mothers but he said the agency didn’t put in place guardrails and rules for years. He said it left hospital staff in a bind giving babies to mothers they were worried couldn’t take care of them.

CYFD would not comment on the lawsuit but stated in the past that states had to have care plans for drug-addicted babies in place to get federal funding tied to a federal law from 2003.

“In 2003 that was before, I think, the opioid epidemic with, you know, hydrocodone and the sorts of pills that got people addicted to heroin. And certainly, in 2003 you didn’t have a fentanyl epidemic,” said Beck.

Beck said New Mexico should have followed other states’ tough guidelines.