Soldier's baby boy burned during operation at Madigan Army Medical Center

$12M payout may be appealed after botched surgery and burning of soldier’s child at Army hospital

Army Times
By: Kyle Rempfer
August 22, 2019

“They don’t face any penalties for filing a frivolous appeal and having months pass where this child can’t get the money for the very specialized care he needs,” Zanowski said.

The boy was undergoing surgery to remove a benign cyst when the medical team's lack of communication led to the use of an electrocautery device in conjunction with high oxygen levels, igniting a fire, court documents show. (Evergreen Personal Injury Counseling)

The federal government may appeal a $12.3 million verdict they were ordered to pay to the family of a young boy whose face was severely burned four years ago in a botched surgery at Madigan Army Medical Center on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.

The government filed a “protective notice of appeal” in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, taking issue with the large payout.

The appeal means that the money expected to be awarded to the family for medical costs will be withheld for the time being, said Gemma Zanowski, an attorney at Evergreen Personal Injury Counsel who represents the family of the child.

The boy, identified in court documents as BJP, is the son of an active-duty soldier. In 2015, the boy spent 22 days in an intensive care and burn unit after the botched surgery ignited a fireball that left second- and third-degree burns across his face and neck, according to court records.

BJP must still undergo treatment for the burns, including a reconstructive procedure that would insert a balloon under the skin in order to stretch it slowly over a period of months.
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#endferesdoctrine

Ex- Pathologist charge in deaths of three veterans

Former VA Pathologist Charged in Deaths of 3 Patients

The Associated Press 
By Andrew DeMillo 
21 Aug 2019

VA officials said in January that outside pathologists reviewed nearly 34,000 cases handled by Levy and found more than 3,000 errors or missed diagnoses dating back to 2005.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A pathologist fired from an Arkansas veterans hospital after officials said he had been impaired while on duty was charged Tuesday with involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of three patients who authorities say he misdiagnosed and whose records he later altered to conceal his mistakes.

A grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday charged Dr. Robert Morris Levy in the patients' deaths and on multiple charges of fraud and making false statements for his alleged attempts to conceal his substance abuse and incorrect diagnoses.

In the deaths, Levy is accused of falsifying entries in his patients' records after making incorrect and misleading diagnoses. In one case, a patient died of prostate cancer after Levy determined that his biopsy showed he didn't have cancer, prosecutors allege.

Prosecutors say a second patient died of squamous cell carcinoma after Levy misdiagnosed the patient with another form of carcinoma. In a third case, the indictment says, a patient with small cell carcinoma was treated for a type of cancer he didn't have following an incorrect diagnosis by Levy, and died.
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Supreme Court denies justice, lets military malpractice stand....

Supreme Court rejects bid to overturn prohibition on military malpractice cases

Military Times By: Leo Shane III May 20, 2019

Thomas wrote that by refusing to re-examine the issue, the Supreme Court has allowed the Feres doctrine to be twisted and strengthened over the years. He also lamented that Congress could find ways to address the issue “but it did not.”

The Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. is shown in January 2019. On Monday, the court opted not to hear a case which challenged the legal precedent barring individuals from suing the military for medical malpractice. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The Supreme Court again on Monday opted not to hear a challenge to the legal precedent barring individuals from suing the military for medical malpractice, a decision blasted by Justice Clarence Thomas as short-sighted and unfair.

“Unfortunate repercussions — denial of relief to military personnel and distortions of other areas of law to compensate — will continue to ripple through our jurisprudence as long as the Court refuses to reconsider (this issue),” Thomas wrote in his dissent to the court’s decision not to take up the challenge.

The move once again shifts from the courts to Congress debate on how to fix problems surrounding the Feres Doctrine, a 1950 Supreme Court decision that blocks troops from claiming medical malpractice damages for actions related to their military service. At the time, the court found that military personnel injured by the negligence of another federal employee cannot sue under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
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Supreme Court will take on Feres Doctrine suit!

Military Medical Malpractice Suit Stays Alive in US Supreme Court

Military.com
By Patricia Kime
2 Apr 2019

The plaintiff, Walter Daniel, is a former Coast Guard officer whose wife, Rebekah "Moani" Daniel died during childbirth at Naval Hospital Bremerton, Washington, in March 2014. The lawsuit alleges that the doctors failed to provide prompt medical treatment when Daniel, a Navy lieutenant who worked as a nurse at the hospital, began bleeding excessively. She died four hours after giving birth.

A court case that challenges the authority of the Feres doctrine in cases of military medical malpractice was not among the 150-plus petitions rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.

Walter Daniel and Rebekah "Moani" Daniel. (Courtesy Photo)

The Feres doctrine is the controversial 69-year-old court ruling that prohibits service members from suing the federal government for injuries deemed incidental to military service.

The case, Daniel v. United States, was to be distributed to the Supreme Court justices for conference on March 29, meaning they were set to discuss it Friday and to announce their decision to accept or deny it on Monday.

But when the order was released this morning, the court had accepted one new case and rejected hundreds of others. The Daniel case was not among the rejections.

A spokeswoman for Daniel's attorney said he awaits word as to whether the case is being rescheduled for conference.

Attorneys who favor reconsideration of the Feres doctrine say the delay offers hope that the "Supreme Court has taken an immediate interest in revisiting" the ruling.
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Walter Reed Tries Healthcare Resolutions

Military doctors, patients come together after medical errors
Military Times
By Patricia Kime, Staff writer
November 15, 2015

Military family members are allowed to file medical malpractice suits against military treatment facilities, but active-duty troops are barred from doing so under the 1950 Supreme Court decision known as the Feres Doctrine.

A doctor removes bandages from a patient. The Defense Department is expanding a program that allows health care providers and patients discuss medical errors in order to do with feelings such as guilt and sorrow.

(Photo: Air Force)

The Defense Department is expanding a program that helps ease some of the sadness, anger, confusion and frustration felt by patients and military doctors after a medical error or poor treatment experience.

Underway at eight military medical centers with plans to expand to more, the Healthcare Resolutions program provides a way for doctors, patients and family members to talk — and even apologize — after a medical mistake, unexpected death or breakdown in physician-patient communications.

Developed in 2001 at what is now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the program facilitates discussions between doctors and patients or their family members, aiming to shed light on what went wrong and what's being done to ensure it doesn't happen again, said program developer Barbara Moidel.

“We have learned the value of transparency. We do not want to be defined or disabled by adverse medical events; we commit to learning from them by being transparent. We acknowledge, we apologize," Moidel said.
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Veteran Fights Against Fort Campbell Malpractice

Campbell County Veteran Fights Military Malpractice 
WSET ABC News 13
By Mona Abdi
Posted: Jun 12, 2015

An MRI scan taken at a hospital in Fort Campbell a week before he left the military showed ... Hall could've been diagnosed then --- but was left untreated for 5 years. "They said it was my fault because I should of checked" said Hall.

Campbell County, VA - A Campbell County veteran who fought for America is fighting a new battle here at home. For Nelson Hall the conflict is both personal and painful.

"They teach you don't be a sick hall warrior, don't complain about injuries deal with it" said Nelson Hall.

After 5 years in the Army and 3 tours overseas, Hall is no stranger to battle. "I was air assault, so I jumped out of helicopters and stuff" said Hall.

But his toughest fight began after he was medically discharged in 2008. Hall qualified for retirement because of the insurmountable medical problems he suffered from towards the end of his service.

"I noticed memory loss, I was always at the TMC sick, broke out in hives" said Hall. But worst of all, Hall says, were the headaches. "Sometimes it's like an electrical shock going down the back of my head down my neck."

The pain continued well after he left the Army. "Finally one of my VA doctors asked for another MRI and that's when they found out it came out abnormal" said Hall.
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Fort Carson Doctors Increased Malpractice Insurance But Didn't Change Practice of Mistreatment

This pretty much sums up what is going on when these folks increase their malpractice insurance because soldiers were trying to "game the system" instead of caring about causing the reasons the soldiers would even have to consider it.

This just goes to add up to the simple fact the rumors we've been hearing all these years are true.

Army Finds Toxic Climate of Mistrust for Fort Carson Wounded Warriors
Military.com
by Richard Sisk
Mar 25, 2015

The Army's investigation of wounded warrior care at Fort Carson, Colo., last year found allegations of a "toxic environment" that at times pitted the command and staff against the soldiers in treatment and undergoing evaluation.

Fort Carson soldiers who received care at the Evans Army Community Hospital told Army investigators that they also received abuse as staff and unit leaders tried to force them out of the Army.

Meanwhile, doctors at Fort Carson took out extra malpractice insurance to protect themselves against liability and accused soldiers of attempting to game the system to get more benefits, according to the Article 15-6 fact-finding investigation by Army Brig. Gen. John Sullivan, the Chief of Transportation and Transportation School Commandant.

The climate of mutual suspicion was such that the Army staff sergeant whose complaints triggered the investigation secretly recorded his sessions with staff when he was warned by a Fort Carson social worker that he was being set up to be discharged without benefits for misconduct, or "chaptered out."

Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, who ordered the Fort Carson investigation, said at a meeting with Pentagon reporters last month that the issues were ultimately resolved to the staff sergeant's satisfaction and that the Fort Carson case did not indicate a "systemic" problem with Army care.

However, the Army confirmed earlier this month that a separate Article 15-6 investigation under the Uniform Code of Military justice is currently underway on new allegations of over-medication and harassment by staff at the Fort Hood Warrior Transition Unit in Texas.

Army Secretary John McHugh said earlier this month that he had met recently with Horoho and "we addressed this matter."

Last September, a congressionally mandated Pentagon advisory panel recommended that the military scrap its entire disability evaluation system.

In its final report after four years of work, the Recovering Warrior Task Force said that the Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES) was impeding the goals of wounded warrior programs to return soldiers to duty or ease their transition to civilian life.

"The current IDES is fundamentally flawed and DoD should replace it," the task force report said.
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Outsourced veteran shoddy care left him malnourished

This veteran was outsourced. He suffered because of non-VA doctor. He should sue the doctor.

Malnourished Veteran Pleads For Help From VA
WBKO
By: Kayla Vanover
Jun 27, 2014

BOWLING GREEN, Ky (WBKO) -- An Army veteran, living right here in Bowling Green, is being denied full benefits while suffering from a surgery that he says was performed in error.

Frank Coursey has not eaten solid food in nearly three years. As if this is not enough strain on his body, he goes to bed each night worried about the future of his family, if something were to happen to him.

"This picture is on 07-07-2007. I was 286 pounds. This picture was Father's Day of this year," said Frank Coursey, veteran.

Frank Coursey is currently 133 pounds, losing on average five pounds per week. His weight loss is the result of a gastric bypass surgery performed by a doctor in West Virginia, whom he was referred to by a his local VA physician.

Coursey says immediately following his surgery, he knew something did not feel right.

"Dr. Canterbury was there with about eight or nine students discussing the operations of the job and all that. I remember him looking at me and saying this is the worst case scenario of this surgery that we've had," said Frank Coursey, veteran.
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Iraq vet died after 3 tours and misdiagnosis of cancer

Iraq war veteran, San Benito graduate succumbs to cancer
San Benito News
News by Editor
By FRANCISCO E. JIMENEZ
Staff Writer

Staff Sgt. Guadalupe Maldonado

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Guadalupe “Lupe” Maldonado, a three-time veteran of the Iraq War, died on Saturday, Feb. 1, following a hard-fought battle with Stage 4 colon cancer.

He was 36 years old.

Lupe, who graduated in the Top Five percent and number six of his class from San Benito High School in 1996, was diagnosed with cancer in late March 2013 following years of misdiagnosis.
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Vietnam Vet Wins $12 Million Malpractice Settlement From VA Hospital

Vietnam Vet Wins $12 Million Malpractice Settlement From VA Hospital
CBS Chicago
December 3, 2013

CHICAGO (CBS) — A Chicago-area Vietnam veteran will get a $12 million medical malpractice settlement from the federal government.

John Johnson was a Vietnam Veteran and heart patient.

He went in for oral surgery at the Hines V.A. Hospital in 2007, went into cardiac arrest and suffered brain damage as a result.
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Air Force hospital error removed "cells" and fetus

Pregnancy lost due to Air Force base hospital error, lawsuit alleges
By Elizabeth Simpson
The Virginian-Pilot
Published: February 17, 2013

Heather Fergurson can't help but replay the mental tape of April 18, 2011, over and over in her head.

The Chesapeake woman had walked into Langley Air Force Base Hospital that day for a prenatal visit. Her husband and son were with her, excited by the idea of a new baby by Christmas.

But within hours, Fergurson was told she might instead have a mass of cancerous cells growing in her uterus. She was sent for a procedure called a suction dilation and curettage - typically done after a miscarriage to remove fetal tissue from the womb, or when there's an unwanted mass that needs to be excised.

Fergurson soldiered through the emotionally wrenching experience, believing the surgeon was removing cells that had gone haywire.

Little did she know the worst was to come two days later. That's when officials from the Langley hospital sat at a conference table and informed her that the tissue a surgeon removed had actually been a healthy fetus, about 11 weeks along.

Fergurson, 32, has been unable to conceive again. She often revisits the moments she spent on the operating table that day. And earlier this month, she filed a $1.7 million lawsuit against the federal government alleging malpractice.

She and her husband, Charles Fergurson, want answers.

"I've been deployed four times in combat zones," said Charles, a 56-year-old sergeant major in the Army. "We die in combat, we know that can happen. We accept that."

But he can't accept that his pregnant wife went into a military hospital for a prenatal exam and had a procedure that destroyed a healthy fetus.
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Mom and twins die, Catholic hospital argues fetuses aren’t people in malpractice suit

Just one more example of "pro-life" only matters when they want it to. Money meant more to them this time so they said the twins were not "people" and used the law to get away with it. Would be nice if they felt that way all the time instead of just when they want to or stuck to their claimed beliefs even when it meant they would have to pay a price.

Catholic hospital argues fetuses aren’t people in malpractice suit
JAN 24, 2013
Yes, Catholic Health Initiatives' latest move is hypocritical, but they are following the law. That's a good thing
BY KATIE MCDONOUGH

There is something a little off about the Internet gloating surrounding a malpractice lawsuit that got a Catholic hospital to do a 180 on fetal personhood.

Sure, it is hypocritical for a Catholic hospital to reverse course on their “commitment to the unborn” just because there is money at stake. But by rejecting the wrongful death claim filed after two 7 month-old fetuses died in the womb, Catholic Health Initiatives, a nonprofit that runs roughly 170 health facilities in 17 states, is finally following the law, rather than fighting it. And that’s a good thing.

Lori Stodghill was 31-years old, seven-months pregnant with twin boys and feeling sick when she arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006. She was vomiting and short of breath and she passed out as she was being wheeled into an examination room. Medical staff tried to resuscitate her but, as became clear only later, a main artery feeding her lungs was clogged and the clog led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill’s obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who also happened to be the obstetrician on call for emergencies that night, never answered a page. His patient died at the hospital less than an hour after she arrived and her twins died in her womb.
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Time to stop protecting military from malpractice suits

Is the Feres Doctrine fair?
The legal precedent that protects the U.S. military from medical malpractice suits is challenged

By TRAVIS J. TRITTEN
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 19, 2011
Staff Sgt. Dean Witt would likely still be alive and raising his two children if an Air Force hospital had not botched a routine appendectomy.

Medical staff at Travis Air Force Base in California committed mistake after mistake following Witt’s 2003 surgery — including pushing a breathing tube into his stomach and using resuscitation equipment designed for children — that left the blond-haired, blue-eyed airman in a persistent vegetative state until he was finally removed from life support three months later by his family.

“We saw Dean and he was wired to so many machines,” Carlos Lopez, Witt’s brother-in-law, said. “I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. How do you go from a super healthy 25-year-old man to somebody who is essentially lifeless?”

Now, Witt’s death is the latest tragic case of military medical malpractice that has worked its way to the doorstep of the Supreme Court in an attempt to upend the legal precedent known as the Feres Doctrine. For more than 60 years, the ruling has protected the U.S. government from being held liable when servicemembers are killed due to official negligence while on duty.

The court is set to decide this month whether it will hear arguments from the Witt family and the government on whether to strike down protections against such suits and award damage payments for Witt’s death.

A Feres Primer

1950

The Supreme Court rules that the government is not liable for injuries to servicemembers on active duty caused by the negligence of other servicemembers. The decision creates what is now known as the Feres Doctrine and effectively blocks lawsuits over military medical malpractice on servicemembers.

1987

The Supreme Court upholds its 1950 Feres ruling in Johnson v. United States, saying the government is not liable for a member of the Coast Guard who was killed in a helicopter crash due to flight controller negligence.

2003

Staff Sgt. Dean Witt suffers severe brain damage due to mistakes by medical staff while undergoing an appendectomy at Travis Air Force Base and dies three months later when his family removes him from life support.

(also in the video below)

2006

Marine Cpl. Yuriy Zmysly suffers severe brain damage after military hospital staff prematurely remove his breathing tube during an appendectomy.

2007

Marine Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez dies from cancer after the military diagnosed his melanoma but for years failed to notify or treat him.

2008

The Carmelo Rodriguez Medical Decency Act is proposed by a New York congressman and triggers committee hearings on the Feres Doctrine but never gets to a floor vote in the House.

2009

Airman Colton Read has both legs amputated after surgeons at Travis Air Force Base accidentally nick an artery and allow him to bleed out on the operating table.

2010

The Supreme Court declines to hear the Zmysly case.

2011

The Witt family petitions the Supreme Court to hear its case. The court is expected to make a decision this month.

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Is the Feres Doctrine fair

Veteran awarded money after VA psychiatrists committed malpractice

Veteran Awarded $600,000 for VA’s Failure to Refer him for Medical Treatment
June 23, 2010 posted by Terry Richards

All Veterans who currently receive or formerly received VA Medical Care should read this story to see if this same type of VA Malpractice happened to them. If it did, then they may have a Legal Cause of Action for a Federal Tort Claim. Even if the Statute of Limitations has expired you can still file a SECTION 1151 CLAIM for Service-Connected Disability which has NO TIME LIMIT. At the end of this story there will be a Link with further information about SECTION 1151 CLAIMS and suing the VA for Medical Malpractice in a Federal Tort Claim, among other things.

Deasy v. US., 99 F.3d 354 (1996)

VA Hospital Malpractice; Failure To Refer Patient

Under Colorado and Maryland law, the evidence supported a district court’s finding that Veterans Administration (VA) psychiatrists committed malpractice by failing to refer a patient for medical treatment for his edema, held the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. This was so even though the government claimed the plaintiff’s psychiatrists were not qualified to offer expert opinion on the standard of care required of physicians who treat edema, since the relevant issues in the case were whether it was a breach of the psychiatric standard of care to fail to refer the patient and whether failure to do so increased the patient’s psychiatric symptoms, on which the psychiatrists were qualified to give expert opinions, said the court.
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VA Hospital Malpractice

Vets affected by VA hospital errors to file claims

Vets affected by VA hospital errors to file claims
Monday, July 27, 2009 2:34:30 PM

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.(AP)

An attorney is preparing to ask the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to pay disability benefits and damages for hospital mistakes that may have exposed veterans to infectious body fluids _ a complaint that he said could ultimately multiply into many more such demands.

The attorney, Mike Sheppard of Nashville, said he is preparing to file claims with the VA for about 60 veterans, including three women.

Among them are veterans who have tested positive for HIV and hepatitis and others who suffered emotional distress after the VA provided them with initial positive blood tests for infections that turned out to be wrong.

Sheppard also said other veterans among the roughly 10,000 affected former patients at VA hospitals in Murfreesboro, Tenn., Miami and Augusta, Ga., are likely to seek compensation beyond the VA's offer of free medical care.
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Vets affected by VA hospital errors to file claims

Philadelphia V.A. hospital sued by Vietnam Vet

Philadelphia V.A. hospital sued!
July 15, 2009 (NewYorkInjuryNews.com - Injury News)

New Source: JusticeNewsFlash.com
Legal news for Pennsylvania Veteran’s Affairs medical malpractice lawyers.

Attorneys representing a Vietnam veteran sue Department of Veteran’s Affairs

Philadelphia, PA–The Philadelphia Inquirer reported a medical malpractice claim was filed against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) by a Vietnam veteran. The veteran, 59 year-old Barry Lackro, filed the lawsuit after news broke about a certain Veterans Administration medical facility executing botched cancer treatments. There have been 92 cases in which the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, in Pennsylvania, admitted to administering an insufficient, or excessive, amount of radiation. Lackro was one of the 92 patient’s who received negligent care.
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Philadelphia V.A. hospital sued

Legislator pushing bill to overturn Feres Doctrine

Law prevents troops’ malpractice lawsuits
Legislator pushing bill to overturn Feres Doctrine
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, June 20, 2007
WASHINGTON — Military doctors identified potentially cancerous tumors on Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez’s back in 1997, and again noted it during numerous physicals over the next eight years. But they never told him about it.

He died of skin cancer in January 2007.

His family said if Rodriguez received that kind of treatment from a civilian doctor, they’d have already won a civil suit against the hospital and forced the physicians out of practice.

"This was negligence," said his sister, Yvette Rodriguez. "It was clear malpractice, and his death could have been prevented."

But, under federal law, they can’t sue the Marine Corps or doctors involved. A Supreme Court decision known as the Feres Doctrine blocks any servicemember from suing for damages related to injuries, mistakes or negligence that occurs while they’re on active duty.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., wants to change that. Last month, he introduced new legislation that would permit medical malpractice claims against the military, specifically citing Rodriguez’s case.
go here for more
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=55658

Use some common sense here. If Feres Doctrine had been overturned do you think that the government would have been doing what they have been doing when it comes to Walter Reed? When it comes to misdiagnosing wounded veterans? When it comes to turning away suicidal veterans turning to them for help? Would there be deaths because of mistakes or would they have set up ways to make sure the troops/veterans were getting the best possible care all the time instead of most of the time? If they are getting the best care possible than letting them be able to sue will do the government no harm since they pay their lawyers anyway. If not, then the men and women who serve this nation will end up getting the best care possible.