In 2013 the prestigious Journal of Patient Safety published a study that as many as 440,000 patients die each year from preventable medical errors
That would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.
These people are not dying from the illnesses that caused them to seek hospital care in the first place. They are dying from mistakes that hospitals could have prevented. What are these fatal errors ?
WHAT ARE THESE SHOCKING MEDICAL ERRORS?
Air bubbles
Operation on the wrong body part
Deadly infections
Switching feeding tubes and chest tubes
Over- or under-anesthesia
Misidentification of patient
Forgetting surgical equipment inside patients
Lost patients especially those with dementia or brain injury
WHO ARE THESE INCOMPENTENT & NEGLIGENT DOCS ?
A New England Journal of Medicine January 28, 2016 study reported that 1% of physicians accounted for 32% of paid malpractice claims over the last 10 years. The ugly truth is that little is being done to hold these dangerous doctors accountable
Researchers found the “bad” doctors showed “distinctive characteristics,” including having paid previous malpractice claims.
So it stands to reason that health-care providers could eliminate 1/3 of medical malpractice—along with patients’ pain and suffering, as well as the added costs of corrective surgeries, long-term care and indemnity payments—by removing the worst 1% of doctors.
WHY AREN’T BAD DOCS STOPPED FROM PRACTICING ?
The answer lies at least partially in the National Practitioner Data Bank, a clearinghouse for information on medical malpractice that Congress established in 1986 to help state licensing boards police the health-care industry.
The national database was supposed to help states identify dangerous doctors and prevent them from harming more patients…..Andis used by hospitals, insurers, and licensing boards to track doctors’ records, check prospective hires, and make other decisions
But it is virtually useless in holding doctors accountable because, by federal law, none are listed by name. They are assigned a random number to protect their identities.
Even if doctors were identified in the data, as they should be, the public would still be barred by law from accessing the records. So vulnerable, sick patients sit in the waiting rooms of bad physicians without a clue about their poor record of performance.
And In most cases… a negligent doctor’s insurance company pays the victim of malpractice, and the doctor goes back to work.
If the doctor develops a bad enough reputation in one town, he can move to a new state and continue practicing. This is unbelievable !
BUT today the public does not have access to the database to identify doctors’ names and addresses to identify doctors with uniquely long histories of being sued or disciplined for medical malpractice.
Because, on September 01, 2011, the government cut off public access — What was behind that decision?
Apparently, one Kansas doctor with a trail of malpractice suits. Dr Robert Tenny
The Kansas based doctor complained to the government, Health Resources and Services Administration that the Kansas City Star newspaper was publishing the story of one of his patients, Marybeth Chase, who died in 2007 after undergoing a brain surgery with Dr. Tenny. It also noted that Tenny had been sued at least 16 times for medical malpractice but had never been disciplined by the state’s licensing boards.
The Insider Exclusive produced a TV story on this case, with the lawyers who represented Marybeth’s family, “When Doctors Go Bad: Maribeth Chase v Dr Robert T. Tenny”.
Tenny finally settled the Chase family’s wrongful death suit for $1,010,000. The settlement brought total malpractice payments paid on Tenny’s behalf since the early 1990s to roughly $3.7 million. federal records indicate.
In some states, including California, Colorado, Georgia and New York, patients can go to medical boards’ websites to find out about doctors’ malpractice histories. But not in Kansas and Missouri.
WHY DON’T DOCTORS REPORT ON BAD DOCS?
Physicians often see the mistakes made by their peers, which puts them in a sticky ethical situation: Should they tell the patient about a mistake made by a different doctor? Too often they don’t.. WHY NOT?
One reason …is that doctors depend on each other for business. So, a physician who breaks the code of silence may become known as an “informer” or “snitch”, and lose referrals, a financial penalty.
Doctors also may be wary of becoming entangled in a medical malpractice case, or causing a colleague to face legal consequences.
The bottom line: Too often doctors aren’t learning from errors. Nor are patients getting the information they need to receive proper treatment or compensation when the outcome is harmful.
Today, our Justice in America Network TV Producer and Host, Steve Murphy sits down with some of Cunninghams Bounds amazing lawyers, Brian Duncan, Robert Mitchell and David Wirtes, attorneys, who tried this case to jury verdict, which returned a unanimous verdict awarding $35 million in punitive damages against Springhill Hospitals, and they will share the reasons for the hospital’s incompetence and negligence, which led to John West Jr’s unnecessary death
In 2014, then 59-year-old John West accidentally sliced most of the tip of his left thumb off when he was using a table saw in his shop.
He went to the emergency room, at which he had surgery to suture the wound from the saw cut. He was given two pain medications for postsurgical care: Dilaudid, and Percocet, the brand name for the opioid oxycodone. He was admitted to the hospital following surgery for observation. He was given the prescribed pain medications while in the hospital. The hospital admitted prescribed doses of Dilaudid were administered to John, but Percocet was not.
Jane Elenwa, one of Springhill’s nurses at first denied giving John the deadly dose of drugs, but was later proven to have lied.
John was found unresponsive after the deadly doses of Dilaudid, and no drugs to counteract opioid overdoses were given and he died
It was discovered that even though NARCAN was available and defendant was billed for 5 units, the hospital never sought to use it, which would have saved John’s life.
And most amazingly, it was discovered that Springhill had no policy in place since 1989 for protocol to deal with dangerous Opioids. That’s how little they cared about their patients.
Brian, Robert and David have earned reputations as an unyielding trial lawyers who repeatedly represent individuals and families against big companies and the Goliaths of the world. And repeatedly win.
And their amazing courtroom skills and headline grabbing success rate continue to provide their clients with the results they need……And the results they most deserve. They have seen many innocent & hard-working people injured and killed by negligent and incompetent doctors, hospitals, and nurses… Their passion is Problem Solving. They approach each case as scientists trying to solve a puzzle.
Their goals….. to “get justice and fairness for injured people… safeguard victims’ rights… and to help guide the hands of justice
As they have so often has stated “These victims could be you or me one day….And if you are so unlucky… you will quickly find out that Justice in America is a hard won battle, where very few Insurance Companies, Doctors, Nurses and Hospitals ever…. “Do the Right Thing”…and you need experienced and passionate trial lawyers who wage a battle with their own financial resources to get their clients justice.
And this is why we all need to protect a legal system that is designed to protect us…and not one that protects Incompetent and Negligent Doctors, Nurses, Hospitals, and their Insurance companies over the common everyday American.
You can contact Brian, Robert and David @ Cunningham Bounds LLC https://www.cunninghambounds.com/ and 251-471-6191