Hartford Personal Injury Lawyer - Medical Malpractice

Vermont Hospitals Will Not Seek Payment For Certain Medical Errors

James Sabatini — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:38:08 GMT

Vermont hospitals recently adopted a policy not to seek payment from patients or insurance companies if certain rare errors are made that result in serious harm. The 14 Vermont hospitals will follow a uniform system that officials said will make the hospitals more accountable. The policy will cover eight, serious medical errors including surgery performed on a wrong body part or on the wrong patient, incorrect surgery, artificial insemination with the wrong donor or injury caused by a medication error. Vermont is he third state to adopt the voluntary policy. It is unclear what if any effect this new policy may have on the rate of errors committed by hospitals. It will certainly have a positive effect on uninsured patients who suffered injuries due to a medical error. These patients will no longer have the added misery of paying medical bills resulting from certain serious medical errors.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

More Lawsuits Filed Against St. Francis Hospital For Failing Protect Patients From Sexual Abuse By Dr. Reardon

James Sabatini — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 13:06:27 GMT

In the latest lawsuit filed against St. Francis Hospital, the victims allege that the doctor accused of sexually abusing his child patients used a gun to threaten the children and raped some of the victims. The lawsuits accuse St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford of failing to protect them from Dr. George Reardon. He was a chief of endocrinology at the hospital and practiced medicine there for 30 years.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

More Lawsuits Filed Against St. Francis Hospital For Failing To Protect Patients From Sexual Abuse By Dr. Reardon

James Sabatini — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 13:06:27 GMT

In the latest lawsuit filed against St. Francis Hospital, the victims alllege that the doctor accused of sexually abusing his child patients used a gun to threaten the children and raped some of the victims. The lawsuits accuse St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford of failing to protect them from Dr. George Reardon. He was a chief of endocrinology at the hospital and practiced medicine there for 30 years.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Medicare To Stop Covering Hospital Errors

James Sabatini — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 13:03:47 GMT

The Bush Administration announced that Medicare will no longer pay the extra costs of treating preventable errors, injuries and infections that occur in hospitals. Until this policy change, Medicare covered expenses stemming from hospital errors. Privare insurers are now also making a similar policy change in an attempt to save money. The new policy does poses some interesting questions including: 1) will it promote better hospital safety thereby reducing the rate of hospital error; 2) who is going to pay for medical expenses incurred for treating injuries caused by hospital error; and 3) who is going to determine if a medical expense was due to a preventable hospital error.

For more information on this subject matter, please refer to the section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Hospital Ignores Dying Woman's Pleas For Help

James Sabatini — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:12:18 GMT

A woman lies on the ground dying from a perforated bowel. She is in pain, vomitting up blood and asking for help. Incredibly, this was happening in an emergency room. At the King-Harbor hospital in Los Angeles, this woman, her boyfriend and an unidentified person pleaded with the hospital for help. Their pleas for help were ignored. Calls were made to 911 requesting that an ambulance take the woman to another hospital. No help arrived. This is one of the worst case of medical malpractice that I ever read about it. Based on the facts set forth in the LA Times article, there should be an immediate criminal investigation opened into this woman's tragic death.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Patient Awake During Surgery

James Sabatini — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:40:27 GMT

Studies say that up to 40,000 surgery patients a year are left awake but paralyzed during surgery.
Two West Virginia women say that experience caused their father to commit suicide.

Sherman Sizemore, a former coal miner and Baptist minister, killed himself in February 2006, two weeks after undergoing abdominal surgery. The family has filed a lawsuit claiming medical malpractice. According to the lawsuit, Sizemore was awake for nearly 30 minutes of his surgery.
The family said this experience left their father so upset he took his own life.
Experts saiy that people who have suffered from anesthesia awareness are frequently distressed, even suffering from post-traumatic stress.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Diagnosis Momentum

James Sabatini — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:15:08 GMT

I am always looking for a catchy phrase that describes how and why a doctor has committed malpractice. The latest phrase I have discovered is diagnosis momentum. This phrase describes the tendency of each doctor brought into a case to accept blindly the initial doctor's diagnosis. It is like a rock rolling down a mountain, where the farther it rolls down the more force it gains, crushing anything in its pass. This phrase and the rock analogy comes from a book entitled How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, MD. I recommend the book.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Higher C-Section Rate Due to Malpractice Fears

Shannon Weidemann — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:58:27 GMT

The rate for Caesarean Sections in the Bay State rose from 31% in 2004 to 32% in 2005. That is about two thirds of all births. There were approximately 77,000 live births in the state in 2005.

Doctors cite many reasons for the increase including older women, multiple births, and malpractice fears. The more risk factors there are with a pregnancy, increases the likelihood that a doctor will recommend and perform a c-section. If a woman's first delivery is by c-section, then most subsequent pregnancies will be as well.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Connecticut Emergency Room Crisis

James Sabatini — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:31:55 GMT

Last week an Illinois woman died from a heart attack after waiting to been seen by a doctor at the emergency room. Here in Connecticut, emergency room doctors believe that it is just a matter of time until such a tragedy occurs in a Connecticut emergency room hospital.

According to the Hartford Courant report: Michael Carius, chairman of the department of emergency room medicine at Norwalk Hospital, does not know of any deaths in Connecticut due to emergency room delay but has witnessed too many close calls. The largest contributing factor to this serious problem appears to be overcrowding. A task force has been established to seek remedies to this serious problem. Until then, sick people arriving at Connecticut emergency rooms may be waiting too long - exposing themselves to greater injury and possible death.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Guidant Issues Yet Another Defibrillator Warning

Staff Writer — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:17:26 GMT

Brandon Smith at Childers, Buck and Schlueter in Atlanta brought my attention to a Guidant article from Bloomberg News in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. It appears Guidant is having yet another problem with their difibrillators as almost 1000 devices may quit working prematurely.

According to the Guidant defibrillator defect article:

Defibrillators are implanted in the chests of heart-failure patients and wired directly to hearts to keep them from suddenly stopping, halting the circulation of blood throughout the body. When the device senses an abnormal heart rhythm, it fires high-voltage electrical pulses to restart the heart.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Staff Writer