Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/12/2008

As reported in the Houston Chronicle last month, a new study has found that emergency room waiting times nationwide increased 36 percent between 1997 and 2004. The study, conducted by researchers from the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, concluded that the increased wait likely has an adverse impact on patient care and may cause some to leave the hospital before seeing a doctor. Data for the study were based on the more than 90,000 emergency room visits in urban and non-urban areas.

Emergency room overcrowding is a widespread and debilitating situation in ER’s across this country today. Anyone who has visited an emergency room over the past several years has surely noticed the clear signs: conference rooms and offices converted to patient care areas, waiting rooms mobbed with people, sometimes standing room only, stressed nurses and aides working round the clock to see patients. In most emergency rooms, patients with non life threatening injuries can expect to wait upwards of 90 minutes to see a physician. Factors that have contributed to overcrowding include the closings of a number of emergency departments nationwide, increasing volume of patients, increasing severity of illnesses that patients contract, the frequency with which a large percentage of the population without healthcare utilize emergency rooms as their “primary care physicians”, nursing shortages, the fact that many underinsured or uninsured let their illnesses go on for weeks before seeking medical attention and the hospitals’ decision to admit elective cases (higher payments) rather than allocating beds to admitted and waiting emergency room patients. Other factors include the lack of availability of nursing home beds to clear room for people with acute illnesses, the shortage of radiology and laboratory technicians to process critical tests in a timely fashion, thereby preventing hospitals from discharging or admitting these patients.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/12/2008

As set forth in the New York Times last month, the results of a new study have shown that in nearly a third of cases hospital staffs take too long to respond to sudden cardiac arrests. The study, to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that the delays contribute to increased rates of brain damages and death each year. Data for the study were gathered from records at 369 hospitals where patients’ hearts stopped because of conditions that could be reversed using a defibrillator.

According to the American Heart Association, regardless of whether you have been trained, you should begin CPR with chest compressions on a person who you suspect is having a heart attack or is unconscious from a heart attack. With each passing minute after a heart attack, more heart tissue loses oxygen and begins to deteriorate and die. The way to prevent heart damage is to restore the flow of blood quickly. Medications that are typically given to heart attack victims include aspirin (reduces blood clotting, helping blood flow through a narrowed artery), clotbusters or thrombolytics (help dissolve a clot in your artery), super aspirins, nitroglycerin (temporarily opens arterial blood vessels, improving blood flow), beta blockers (help relax your heart muscle, slow your heartbeat and decrease blood pressure, making heart’s job easier), ACE inhibitors (lower blood pressure and reduce stress of heart), and cholesterol lowering medications (otherwise known as statins).

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on:02/11/2008

A jury in Connecticut has awarded $38.5 million to the family of a child who was born with cerebral palsy. The jury found that Dr. Corrinne De Cholnoky was negligent for failing to order a timely Caesarean Section to untangle the child’s umbilical cord, which was impeding blood flow to his brain and thereby resulted in serious physical and cognitive injuries. The award is believed to be the largest medical malpractice verdict in Connecticut state history.

Cerebral palsy is a complex medical condition that ranges in severity from mild to severe. Typically, those afflicted with cerebral palsy have an inability to control their motor function; i.e., they lack adequate muscle control and coordination. Common symptoms that can lead to a diagnosis of cerebral palsy include: involuntary movements of limbs; muscle spasticity (tightness), inability to walk properly (gait); seizures, breathing problems or difficulty swallowing; bladder and bowel continence issues; learning disabilities, and the impairment of one or more senses (sight, hearing, etc.). More severe cases may also result in a child having difficulty speaking.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 12/18/2007

As reported in numerous media outlets last week, actor Randy Quaid filed a lawsuit against Baxter International, a pharaceutical company, after his infant twins were given an overose of the Baxter-manufacturerd blood thinner heparin at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The suit alleges that Baxter was negligent because the company’s packaging design for heparin contributed to the hospital mix-up in the dosage. The suit notes that Baxter produces two vials of two different strengths, each with a blue background. One strength has a concentration of 10 units of heparin per milliliter, and the other has a concentration of 10,000 units per milliliter. The hospital administered the product that was 1000 times as strong. The suit contends Baxter was negligent because it knew that three infants died last year as a result of a similar heparin overdose related to packaging confusion but failed to recall the product or issue a warning to hospitals. The Quaid twins have recovered from the overdosage and the lawsuit seeks to bring awareness of the frequency of medication overdoses to the general public.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 12/17/2007

The parents of two girls who were killed after a concrete truck struck their family’s car will receive $9 million as part of a settlement with the trucking company. The parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Brundage-Bone Concrete Pumping claiming that the driver was negligent in the crash. State Highway Patrol records show that the driver was traveling at an unsafe speed before the incident. It was unclear whether the driver was on his cellular telephone immediately prior to the accident.

Baltimore is a heavily industrialized city and as such there is an abundance of commercial trucks sharing the road with cars, pedestrians and motorcycles. There are many hazards associated with trucks sharing the road including their larger size, need for increased turning space, speed and blind spots and this leads to an increased number of truck accidents in Baltimore. In addition, with the explosion of cellular telephones, texting devices and other wireless communication devices, the opportunity for truck drivers to be distracted has increased exponentially.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 11/16/2007

The family of a 6 year old girl who was severely injured after sitting on an open drain in a shallow country club pool filed a lawsuit this week against the club and pool manufacturer. The girl who lost part of her intestinal tract in the incident faces a small intestine transplant and lifetime medical expenses that could total tens of millions of dollars, said an attorney for the family. The girl requires a backpack with one tube carrying nutrients to her chest and another tube carrying predigested food to her stomach. She wears a colostomy bag and must attend school with a nurse. The lawsuit seeks damages for future medical costs and for the pool manufacturer to remove the pool cover from the market. Several states have passed pool safety laws after children drowned or were disemboweled by drain suction. North Carolina, for example, requires pools to have dual drains to prevent such injuries.

Sadly, each year, hundreds of children are killed or injured in pool drain-related incidents. In many instances, the vacuum effect of the pool drain holds swimmers, especially children, to the bottom of a pool. Contact with a pool drain by a child can result in suction that equates to roughly hundreds of pounds of pressure holding the child to the pool’s bottom. In one well documented case, four adult males were unable to successfully pull a young girl off a drain on the pool bottom due to the extreme suction forces being generated by the pool drain. In another case, a young boy died following the drain cap coming off of the drain and he being exposed to the suction forces of the drain itself.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 11/14/2007

As reported last week in the Winston Salem Journal, a jury awarded an Ashe County family $10.4 million after determining that the care given to a boy being treated at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in 2003 was negligent. In 2003, 11 year old Kaleb Davis was critically injured when a tree limb fell on him during a family camping trip. Although the injuries from the falling limb alone would have left him with a useless left arm for the rest of his life, mistakes at the hospital worsened the boy’s situation according to the boy’s attorneys. After three days of deliberating, a jury agreed and awarded Kaleb $10 million and his mother $437,093 for medical expenses. During the trial, the family’s attorneys argued that physicians committed two mistakes which caused bleeding in Kaleb’s brain and spine, injuries which left him unable to live independently and required doctors to later have to fuse his spine to his skull, making it impossible to turn his head.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on:11/01/2007

As first reported in the Los Angeles Times on October 31, 2007, 33-year-old Christopher Jones, died outside the Olive View-UCLA Medical Center last week after waiting for 3 hours for treatment for chest pains. According to reports, Jones arrived with complaints of ongoing chest pains but was told to sit in the waiting room until it was his turn. Despite his ongoing symptoms, the hospital’s health care providers failed to perform a simple test to determine whether his heart was functioning properly, a standard practice for a patient complaining of such pain. After waiting for more than 3 hours, Jones got up, walked outside and collapsed on the pavement, dying within minutes. As reported in the LA Times, medical records show the Olive View triage nurse never wrote down basic details about Jones’ complaints, including the location of his chest pain or how bad it was. Those symptoms are key to determining how the hospital should respond. While Jones had his pulse, blood pressure and blood sugar levels tested, the medical records do not show he was given an electrocardiogram, a test used to diagnose heart attacks. The American College of Cardiology strongly advises hospitals to conduct an EKG within 10 minutes of a patient’s arrival at an emergency department if he or she complains of chest pain or has other symptoms associated with a heart attack.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on:11/01/2007

In Detroit, Michigan last week, Valerija Milosevic, 75, was recovering from a heart attack in the ICU at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital in Clinton Township. While attempting to get of her hospital, Milosevic fell, breaking her nose and gashing her forehead. Medical staff began treating those injuries, including a cut above her eyebrow that required 20 stitches. The medical staff, however, failed to remove Milosevic’s oxygen mask prior to attempting to cauterize the cuts. As a result, a “fire burst” occurred, severely burning Milosevic’s face. Milosevic has not yet regained consciousness since the fire. Medical professionals inside the room during the procedure also suffered minor injuries. As reported in the Detroit News, a hospital spokeswoman expressed apologies to the family and noted that the hospital was “assuming all accountability for the incident.”

Tragically, fires in hospitals and, in particular, the operating room are an all too common occurrence, often resulting in severe burns or even death. Recent studies indicate that upwards of 650 operating room fires occur each year. Perhaps the saddest part of each of these instances is that these types of fires are usually entirely preventable. Surgical fires these days are often caused by the use of electro-cautery devices, instruments that reach several hundred degrees. Other types of devices include lasers, overhead and fiber optic light sources, drills and burrs. Lasers in particular have been known to create small areas of intense heat that burn through anything in their path and ignite things such as surgical tubes, clothing, patient hair and swabs. These devices form part of a trifecta of elements needed for a flash fire: oxygen, alcohol prep and an ignition source (the electro-cautery device). The fire hazard has been heightened by the increased use of things such as disposable drapes, antiseptic skin agents and cloth/paper drapes. These fires can be prevented through a number of means such as: using the lowest possible inspired oxygen concentration that still ensures adequate oxygen saturation or administering oxygen along with a nonflammable gas such as helium or nitrogen.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 11/01/2007

As first reported by Newsday on Tuesday, Aileen Rivera, a New York mother, announced plans to file a $25-million dollar lawsuit against Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York for “negligence, recklessness and carelessness”, stemming from an emergency room doctor’s failure to diagnose her 12-year-old son, Omar, with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA. Instead, the doctor gave Omar an over-the-counter antihistamine and sent him home. Two days later, Omar was dead. The hospital has said that Omar did not exhibit symptoms of MRSA when his mother brought him to the emergency room.

MRSA is caused by a strain of staph bacteria that has become resistant to antibiotics commonly used to treat these ordinary types of infections. Generally speaking, MRSA infections occur in hospitalized patients as MRSA generally “breeds” in these settings. Other common settings include nursing homes and dialysis centers. Common symptoms associated with MRSA include small red bumps on the skin that quickly turn into painful abscesses that require draining by surgical means. If these abscesses are allowed to fester untreated, they are prone to bury deep within the body causing potentially life threatening conditions in the bones and joints and bloodstream of the patient. MRSA can progress significantly within 24-48 hours of initial topic symptoms. After 72 hours it can take hold in human tissues and become resistant to treatment.

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