Nassau

Published on: August 23, 2012

When a family member dies, it is a heartbreaking time for the rest of the family

by Stephen Bilkis

When a family member dies, it is a heartbreaking time for the rest of the family. That is made especially true if they are not permitted to honor the memory of their loved one in accordance with their traditions and religious beliefs. In the case of New York, there are laws that are in place to ensure that when a loved one dies, they are placed in a situation that will ensure that every effort is made to locate the next of kin and return the body to them for burial. These laws refer to sepulcher. Sepulcher is the right of a family to inter their kin in the manner that they deem appropriate. It is a recognized right in the state of New York, but that is not the way that it was always done.

In the early 1800’s, medical schools and body snatchers ran amuck in the city of New York. Many families were faced with the loss of the body of a loved one. There was a demand for the legislature to create laws that made it illegal for a person to steal a body or otherwise interfere with the right of a family to possess the body of their loved one. The legislature was faced with a problem about how to word such a fundamental right. The question arose as to whether the theft of a body was a theft of property that belonged to the family. Initially, the laws were worded to reflect the body as the property of a family. However, as laws usually do, they evolved over the years so that the right of sepulcher for a family to possess the body of a loved one was viewed more as a violation of a right to seek the solace of the ritual of a burial than it was a question of a theft of property. That evolution caused a new factor to be raised as it regarded the loss of bodies in morgues throughout the state. The right of sepulcher became an issue of the emotional distress that is caused to a loved one when the body of their family member is not immediately available to them. It is from this evolution of legal statute that the present case came into existence.

On October 28, 2001, a famous playwright , Leonard Melfi died. He was famous for writing the one-act play the Birdbath and he was instrumental in the writing of the Broadway hit play, Oh: Calcutta! He had been a resident of a welfare hotel on the upper west side of Manhattan called the Narragansett Hotel at the time that he collapsed. The Emergency Medical Services personnel filed a report of their interactions at the scene of Mr. Melfi’s collapse. Their report stated that the famous author was in respiratory distress at the time of their arrival. They recorded his address, date of birth, social security number and his next of kin with her phone number on their report. Mr. Melfi was transported to Mt. Sinai Hospital where another report, this one by the emergency room patient registration team was filled out with the same information. The triage report that was filled out on Mr. Melfi only showed that he was fitted with an oxygen mask and that no further treatment was administered to him. The attending physician in the emergency room diagnosed Mr. Melfi with congestive heart failure and atrial fibrillation. He prescribed a drug to slow Mr. Melfi’s heart rate, but again, the record does not show that any other treatment regimen was provided to him. The billing statement of the hospital showed that Mr. Melfi was treated by nurses who did a pulse oximetry, catheter placement, and electrocardiogram, but there is no report of these actions being taken in the patient’s care records.

Published on: August 2, 2012

Blisters around Infusion Site

by Stephen Bilkis

A female patient recently underwent surgery to treat carpal tunnel syndrome. She had been suffering from this condition for years along with hypothyroidism, hypertension and diabetes. Before the surgery was due to start a nurse gave the patient a full checkup and put an IV line into the arm of the patient. The physician requested 5% dextrose, with 40mEq of potassium chloride; the infusion was started while the patient was waiting for the surgery to start.

The Nassau patient was due to undergo surgery shortly after the infusion started. However, as the first operation was more complicated than thought her surgery was delayed. This meant that the patient needed to wait longer than four hours before the surgery started. Around two hours after the IV line was started, the nurse noticed blisters around the infusion site. After surgery these blisters remained and caused necrosis which lead to painful scars.

According to the case details obtained by the Lawyer, the patient thinks that the problems were caused because the catheter was not inserted correctly. This meant that her arm developed eschars which became very painful.

Published on: July 2, 2012

Surgeon Operates on the Wrong Eye of a Young Boy

by Stephen Bilkis

According to parents of a four-year-old, doctors were supposed to operate on their son’s right eye. The surgery was supposed to stop the boy’s eye from wandering. His parents report that that not what happened.

According to the parents, his eye surgeon first mistakenly operated on his left eye. When she realized her mistake, she then repeated the same procedure on his right eye – the correct one. As their son recovers from this medical mistake, they are concerned that they are observing more problems with the boy’s vision than they did before the surgery.

The mother of the young boy says to a Lawyer that she has not noticed any improvement in the right eye. She says she might even be seeing the left eye now wandering – when it didn’t before the mistaken surgery. She is worried about what the unnecessary surgery has done to his vision and what it could do in the future.

Published on: June 28, 2012

The Fund for Injured Infants Evaluated

by Stephen Bilkis

New York governor Cuomo recently attempted to impose limits on medical malpractice lawsuit awards. He was doing this in an attempt to control the state’s health care costs. The measure did not pass and thus there can still be large malpractice awards won in the state of New York.

Arguments made in Nassau and Suffolk in favor of limits on medical malpractice lawsuits usually revolve around curtailing the rapid rise of overall medical costs which are due in part to large monetary awards given in malpractice cases. Opponents of limits say that any limit on a doctor or hospital’s liability greatly reduces their incentive to reduce errors and provide the best possible care, says a source.

Despite the unsuccessful measure which would have limited awards, the governor did manage to enact a fund for infants which were harmed due to medical malpractice. The fund would provide for future medical costs related to the medical errors that lead to further complications and medical expenses. The governor believes that the fund will better provide for the children than a one-time jury award would. The fund would cover increasing medical costs due to inflation and new technologies.

Published on: June 11, 2012

Temporary Doctor Fired Due to Incompetency

by Stephen Bilkis

A doctor who was in the United Kingdom (UK) serving as a LOCUM, or temporary, doctor was struck down for being both incompetent and dangerous. The Italian doctor had been booked as a LOCUM doctor in July 2008 through an agency as a locum Senior House Officer (SHO) for general surgery.

This strike down is the result of a lengthy investigation by the General Medical Council (GMC) that regulates doctors in the UK. The GMC heard from many medical professionals as they gave their accounts of the doctor’s medical competency, or the lack thereof. One of those testified that they had never seen anyone perform so poorly even at the undergraduate level. Another stated that the doctor did not even know the proper technique to ‘scrub up.’ The term ‘scrub up,’ refers to the thorough washing that surgeons do before they perform an operation.

Reports indicate that this doctor was so bad that he was not aware of common medical reporting procedures, and even some of the medical terminology that is understood even by non-medical hospital staff members. As an example, officials confirmed to a reporter, that the doctor thought that a ‘crash’ call referred to a car crash. In medical terminology, a crash call refers to a patient being in cardiac arrest.

Published on: June 9, 2012

$7.6 Million Awarded to Paralyzed Teen

by Stephen Bilkis

In 1978, a teenager’s spinal cord was destroyed by medical professionals who were administering radiation to fight thyroid cancer. As a result of the trial that stemmed from a lawsuit the girl filed against the hospital and pertinent staff involved, the jury awarded $7.6 million to her. Most of the payments are going to payoff medical bills that have amassed because of malpractice.

At the time, it was believed to be the single, largest payment awarded in a malpractice suit in the United States.

The 18-year-old expressed thanks when she said that the jury was full of “wonderful people and now I have a chance for my life.”

Published on: June 4, 2012

Chicago Nursing Home Faces Closure Over Patient Deaths

by Stephen Bilkis

A long-term care facility, more commonly referred to as a nursing home, is where many of those whose needs require more constant care than what a short-term care facility like a hospital can provide. They are also, where many of the long-term and terminally ill spend their remaining time before they die. These facilities are supposed to treat those persons whose care they have been entrusted with the utmost dignity and respect. Unfortunately, there are many cases that these facilities are anything other than trustworthy. A doctor has learned of one such facility that may fit into this category.

Equip for Equality, which is a watchdog group with the support of the federal government, recently conducted an investigation into a nursing facility for disabled children and young adults in Chicago, IL. The facility is facing closure as a result of an investigative journalism story by the Chicago Tribune that detailed death and neglect within the walls of the nursing facility.

Among the allegations that Equip for Equality is making toward the nursing facility is of destroying medication error documents, patients not being treated properly, doctors ignoring pages and lab reports, and internal investigations were sketchy at best.

Published on: June 2, 2012

USC Corrects Implant System After Kidney Was Transplanted in Wrong Patient

by Stephen Bilkis

The University of Southern California (USC) claims they have corrected what they term a flaw in the system that allowed a group of surgeons to transplant a kidney into the wrong patient last January. The wrong transplant occurred when the wrong organ ID wound up on the wrong paperwork. Once that mistakewas made, surgeons were essentially given the okay to proceed with the transplant.

One of the things that a rep has learned is that this ‘rare’ occurrence is not unique to USC. There are similar procedures in use at other transplant centers across the country. The ‘rare’ event started as two kidneys arrived at USC for transplant on the same day. The USC University Hospital performs two transplants a week at the most. Another contributing factor to this rarity is that both kidneys were for the left side, and both kidneys were for someone with type O blood.

Normally, the nurse is to record the operating room booking slip, which includes the organ donor ID number. On this occasion, no number had been recorded. At this point, the nurse is supposed to transfer the number from the operating room booking slip to a blood verification form. This was to serve as a final verification that the blood types and correct organ are matched. Sources have said that since there was no organ donor ID number on the booking slip, the nurse got the number from the box that contained the kidney. The problem is that was the wrong kidney.

Published on: April 23, 2012

Medical malpractice cases involving a set of horrendous mistakes that result in a botched birth

by Stephen Bilkis

When their baby was born with spina bifida, aka a congenital neural tube defect, the parents filed a medical malpractice and wrongful birth lawsuit stating that they had not been told about the purpose of a blood test, referred to as the Triple Marker Test or Alphafetoprotein test, offered to them during the pregnancy, which was to determine if the baby had spina bifida. As a consequence of not being told, the mother did not have the blood test said the Lawyer.

The parents felt that by not being told about the reason for the blood test that they were denied the chance to make an informed decision about continuing the pregnancy or not. When their child was born with a defect, both were devastated and filed for economic and non-economic losses, along with a claim for wrongful life. This motion to hear the claim for wrongful life was precluded and only the parent’s claims were heard.

The jury trial found in favor of the plaintiff parents and awarded past and future economic damages totaling $5 million. Another $5 million was handed down in non-economic damages to the mother and a further $2 million to the father, reported the source.

Published on: March 17, 2012

Birth injuries may happen either before, during or just after birth

by Stephen Bilkis

Birth injuries may happen either before, during or just after birth and typically tend to involve oxygen deprivation to the child’s brain. These kinds of birth injuries are usually referred to as hypoxic brain injuries and in most cases, the child’s life will never be normal. Depending on how severe the birth injury is, the child may require medical care for the rest of their lives and never know what living a normal life means, explained the spokesperson.

The parents in this case were expecting a normal delivery and weren’t anticipating any difficulties with their baby. They trusted their doctor to do the right thing. Unfortunately, while the doctor was trying to do the right thing, he made three egregious errors that forever changed the baby’s life. He burst the membranes in her head, didn’t resuscitate her properly and didn’t immediately order a C-section. This resulted in medical malpractice.

As a direct result of this doctor’s errors, the baby sustained a hypoxic brain injury and for the rest of her life she and her parents will deal with her inability to hear properly, her learning disabilities and her cerebral palsy, indicated the report. Hospitals and doctors in Nassau and Suffolk Counties have had to learn to deal with these situations.