Consumer and patient safety advocates know how important lawsuits are to making health care safer, especially in hospitals. While we can argue this until we’re blue in the face, we know nothing’s as powerful as real life examples. That’s why a story from Norfolk, Virginia’s paper, the Virginia-Pilot, is so powerful.
As we’ve noted before, soldiers who return home from war but are later killed or injured in U.S. military hospitals due to incompetent or reckless medical care, have absolutely no recourse because of the “Feres Doctrine.” Some are now trying to change the law.
But in the meantime, the hospital casualty-count continues. In 2007, a 37-year old Air Force technical sergeant named Cindy Wilson died after giving birth to a healthy baby boy via c-section. Medical records indicate that her uterine artery was cut during delivery, which caused massive internal bleeding. Then, during efforts to repair the damage, two surgical sponges were left in Wilson’s stomach. Twelve hours later she was dead.
Jonathon Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and outspoken critic of the doctrine said such cases show how it has contributed to “substandard care in the military medical system.” Turley indicated to the paper that “Now it’s rare to see that type of malpractice in civilian medicine … But because there is no fear of lawsuits, it keeps happening in military medicine.”
The article goes on to provide a sampling of other military malpractice suits that have been barred over the years:
* When sailor Dawn Lambert went to have a fallopian tube removed, military surgeons left five sponges and a plastic marking device in her abdomen. They remained there for months until a second surgery left her infertile.
* For 11 months, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Walter Hardin’s red lesions were classified as eczema. His condition was correctly diagnosed as cancer shortly before he died.
* Air Force Staff Sgt. Dean Witt’s appendicitis was misdiagnosed and he was sent home with antibiotics. When he collapsed at home, he was rushed into surgery and came out brain-dead.
* According to his medical records, Marine Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez was correctly diagnosed with melanoma when he entered the service. But no one told him about it or suggested any treatment. The cancer spread throughout his body and he died 10 years later.
* Navy Petty Officer Joe Cragnotti went to a military hospital with pneumonia, which is treatable with antibiotics. It went untreated, and he suffered permanent brain damage.
As for the bill before Congress aimed at ending the Feres Doctrine, the House Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee approved it today, and it will now head to the full House Judiciary Committee. Still, Turley said he isn’t optimistic about its chances for passage.
He told UPI, “It would cost a huge amount of money to upgrade the military medical system to meet basic civilian standards … Congress simply doesn't want to spend the money.”
In 2002 I was permanently damaged by a tenfold, recurring overdose of gentamicin (instead of 80mg I recieved 800mg!) in a military hospital that had a pharmacy dosing service. Additionally peak and troughs though ordered, were not done as charting revealed that 'patient is a hard stick'. I WON my law suit against Uncle Sam not because of legal skill, but rather because I was a practicing provider at that time and a former naval medical officer and knew how dismal care could be in military treatment centers. The astounding incompetence of all departments (nursing, pharmacy and at the top - surgical) were the embodiment of the legal definition of res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself). Because I did NOT die, my case netted in the tens of thousands as opposed to the hundreds of thousands or million and a half, had my husband become a widower and my children motherless as a result of these hideous shortfalls in staff skill/mental competance and systemwide failure to respond. Patients have access to legal recourse and MUST be vigilant in seeking that recourse. No fewer than four different legal firms opted not to take my case due to their general lack of knowledge vis a vis aminoglycoside poisoning. The clincher for me was the legal group whose senior partner had been an ICU nurse prior to changing professions. SHE and I singlehandedly beat Uncle into submission. It can be done - but is not for the weak of heart.
Posted by: LastoftheZucchiniFlowers | June 23, 2009 at 05:33 AM