Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

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On July 30, 2008, Isaiah Lockhart went to the Haymarket Center, a chemical dependency facility. Lockhart had a history of alcohol withdrawal. However, when Lockhart complained of “shortness of breath, dizziness, a productive cough and weight loss,” he was sent to get a medical evaluation.

Lockhart went by ambulance to the emergency room at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, a/k/a Cook County Hospital. He arrived at 10:26 p.m. and was triaged. His symptoms were documented and his vital signs recorded. At midnight he was brought into a treatment room and assessed by a nurse, who again recorded his vital signs.

At no point was his cardiac rhythm evaluated. Lockhart was left alone in the room for a short time and at 12:20 a.m. he was found in cardiac arrest. After a prolonged course of emergency treatment, his heart was successfully restarted, but the lack of oxygen left Lockhart with severe encephalopathy and in a persistent vegetative state.

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Sara Perez, 30, suffered a seizure and collapsed. She was admitted to a hospital where doctors diagnosed a noncancerous brain tumor. Upon discharge, Perez was referred to another medical center where a physician recommended surgery to remove the tumor. The next month, she underwent preoperative blood work and an MRI. A month after that, an anesthesiologist cleared Perez for surgery and she was told that the hospital would call her to schedule the procedure. However, the hospital did not call to schedule that surgery.

At the next physician appointment several months later, Perez signed a second consent form. Perez then underwent another battery of preoperative tests and again was cleared for surgery. Several more months passed. No surgery was scheduled.

The noncancerous tumor grew larger, and Perez suffered a second seizure and midline shift of her brain, which led to her death 13 months after the first seizure. Perez had been a customer service dispatcher earning $10 per hour and is survived by her husband and three young children.

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Anna Rahm, 17, began experiencing back pain without relief. Anna’s parents took her to a chiropractor who suggested that she be taken to a physician so that she could undergo an MRI scan. Anna met with her primary care physician at Southern California Permanente Medical Group and was prescribed steroids.

Anna’s mother requested that Anna receive an MRI in light of her 8 months of back pain. However, the doctor said that she could not authorize the test. Anna consulted a physical medicine physician at the HMO clinic who denied her request for an MRI and instead recommended an epidural injection and exercise.

Anna’s back pain increased despite attempts to treat it with acupuncture.

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A trial judge in Jackson County, Ill., refused to follow the case law found in Stanton v. Rea, 2012 IL App (5th) 110187 when calculating the amount of the hospital’s lien amount. In the case of Alma McVey, who was injured after a waitress dropped a tray of drinks on her foot, the issue was how much Memorial Hospital-Carbondale would receive for its $2,891 medical services bill still unpaid.

McVey settled her personal-injury case against the waitress’s employer for $7,500. Under Stanton, attorney fees and litigation expenses should have been deducted from the settlement before calculating the hospital’s share of the settlement. The judge in the McVey case ruled that McVey’s attorney was entitled to $2,250; the hospital would receive $2,500 and the remaining $2,750 would go to the plaintiff, McVey.

The Illinois Appellate Court for the 5th District reversed that ruling, concluding that “the trial court erred in refusing to follow Stanton and begin calculations after the settlement has been reduced by attorney fees and costs.”

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In a confidential arbitration and settlement, Mr. Doe, age 64, suffered severe injuries in a car accident. Doe was taken to a hospital where he was diagnosed as having angle closure glaucoma, a condition in which the iris bulges forward to block the eye’s drainage system. Mr. Doe was given drops, a topical steroid, and an antibiotic. For several days, the doctors continued to watch Mr. Doe determining that he was not yet a candidate for eye surgery due to his weakened physical condition caused by the car accident.

About 2 ½ weeks after the car crash, Mr. Doe was discharged with instructions to follow up with an eye clinic in two weeks. However, Mr. Doe’s vision deteriorated, and he was later taken to a hospital emergency room. At that hospital he underwent emergency bilateral iridotomies. A laser iridotomy uses a focused beam of light making a hole on the outer edge or rim of the iris. The opening allows fluid to flow between the front part of the eye and the area behind the iris. The iridotomy is also the procedure used in angle closure glaucoma patients. Despite this intervention, Mr. Doe now has a lack of light perception in his left eye and only the ability to count fingers at four feet in his right eye.

Mr. Doe brought this lawsuit against the ophthalmologist who supervised his care at the hospital claiming the doctor chose not to properly treat the angle closure glaucoma by, among other things, ordering frequent checks of his intraocular pressures, performing timely laser iridotomies, examining him in the days before his discharge from the hospital and arranging for immediate follow-up care. Mr. Doe did not claim any lost income. At an arbitration, Mr. Doe received an award of $3 million for his damages. The attorney representing Mr. Doe was Kevin Donius.

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Koni Johnson filed suit against two emergency physicians and their employer, Cook County, alleging the doctors were negligent in their treatment of her spinal cord injury. She had gone to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, a/k/a Cook County Hospital a day after she slipped and fell injuring her back.

Johnson alleged that the county violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (42 U.S.C. Section 1395dd) by choosing not to provide appropriate screening and to stabilize her medical condition before discharging her.

Cook County, which owns and operates Stroger Hospital, requested summary judgment based on Sections 6-105 and 6-106 of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act. The defendants argued they had provided appropriate treatment for the condition the emergency room doctors diagnosed, which was muscle spasm and back and buttocks bruises.

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Vitalina Martinez was a long-term patient of the defendant internal medicine physician Eladio Vargas, MD. Martinez was Dr. Vargas’s patient for over 17 years. During this time, Dr. Vargas prescribed various narcotics, Benzodiazepines and barbiturates. Martinez became addicted to these medicines.

She was 52 years old when she fell at home on Oct. 24, 2007. She alleged that the fall was caused by an overdose of the medications prescribed by Dr. Vargas. She was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital where she was admitted for 3 weeks. During this 3-week hospitalization, she went through a detoxification protocol to ease her dependence on the multiple prescription medicines prescribed by Dr. Vargas.

Three weeks after her discharge from Lutheran General, she went to Dr. Vargas’s office on Dec. 4, 2007. At this visit, Dr. Vargas prescribed Xanax and 200 mg of MS Contin for daily use.

 

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HW was 44 years old and had a history of heroin abuse. He developed severe back pain and then went to a local hospital’s emergency room telling the nursing staff that he was also suffering from heroin addiction and that he had experienced fever and nausea.

HW underwent testing, including an EKG, x-rays and blood work and was discharged from the hospital with a diagnosis of exacerbated back pain and narcotic withdrawal.

When the final results of HW’s blood culture were finalized it showed that he was suffering from a systemic blood infection. However, the hospital claimed that it was not able to reach HW by phone to advise him of these very dangerous results. Instead, the hospital sent a certified letter to the address that HW had given at the time of his admission. A copy of that letter was found in his medical records file. Predictably, before HW received the letter, he suffered paralysis from his chest down because of the systemic blood infection.

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J.B. was 35 years old and in her 26th week of her third pregnancy when she developed a severe headache and abdominal cramping. J.B. called her treating obstetrician’s office and later spoke to an on-call physician. That doctor diagnosed a gastrointestinal issue and told J.B. that there was no need for her to go to the hospital.

About 14 hours later, J.B. suffered a stroke. She now suffers from cognitive impairment and paralysis in her right arm, leg and foot. She had been a factory worker earning about $37,000 a year, but now is unable to work at all.

J.B. and her husband sued the obstetrician and her practice, alleging that she chose not to take a full and appropriate history, which would have revealed that J.B.’s abdominal pain was located exclusively in her upper right quadrant, indicative of preeclampsia.

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The Illinois Appellate Court ruled that the emergency-room resident physician, Dr. Nicholas Strane, was immune from suit under the Illinois Emergency Medical Services System Act.

This case arises out of transporting an 11-year-old boy, Donail Weems, who had a severe asthma attack and was taken to Provident Hospital, which is managed by Cook County. One of the physicians who rode along in the ambulance was Dr. Strane, a University of Chicago Medical Center physician. The University of Chicago Medical Center asked the Illinois Appellate court, First District Court to address whether one of its doctors was immune under the Emergency Medical Services Systems Act.

The trial was held in July 2013; the presiding judge denied the hospital’s motion for summary judgment, which asserted civil immunity, but the judge certified the question for appellate review.

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