Parental Obstruction of Care

We are currently experiencing a most trying series of events in our unit and I would love to know if anyone else has experienced something similar and how your management supported you, your co-workers and/or the family. Briefly, and complying with HIPPA, we have a child who has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal, progressive disease. The parents have thrown up roadblocks to care starting in June that include refusing to speak with residents, calling attendings and hospital presidents at home in the middle of the night when a dose of Tylenol is ordered, shutting off infusions of dobutamine (for one), calling nurses criminals, stupid, threatening to find a nurse's wedding and 'trashing' it. They have left the PICU, with the child, no monitors or suction/O2/etc. and have disappeared in the building, PICC lines have been pulled out. They agree with a plan at rounds in the a.m. but when nobody is around in the p.m. they begin a campaign to discredit all that was decided upon. *Did I mention one of the parents is a physician who is employed by the corporation that includes our hospital?* The child is a sweet, sad little thing who does not need ICU level care. We have been forced to 1:1 the child for direct visualization of the parents 24 hrs. a day. The more confident, boundary setting nurses have never been assigned to this child. The younger or more malleable nurses have been bearing the brunt of this psychosocial nightmare. Child protection is involved and has noted there is ample evidence of obstruction of care and charges could be filed. Refer again, to *. Recently, our entire management team left the state for 2 days for a conference. We felt abandoned and wasn't sure we would be backed up if child protection was indeed called. Please share a story or two with me so I can help my coworkers know that we are not alone in this crazy situation.