Family Awarded $700,000 When Hospital Staff Fails to Monitor
Hospital Medical Malpractice Case Summary:
Amount: $700,000Court: Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court
Date: July 2002
Plaintiff's Counsel: David M. Paris
Description: Medical Malpractice and Wrongful Death Our client was a 69 year old woman who presented to the ER at 2:30 a.m. with severe abdominal pain. Her blood work was suggestive of gallstone pancreatitis and her family physician admitted her and ordered a GI consult. The nurses watched her condition deteriorate over the next 16 hours without calling the consultant or family doctor. Family members finally tracked down the consultant who came and performed an emergency procedure to remove the blockage. However, plaintiff’s decedent was already in septic shock and was unable to recover.
The defense argued that her signs and symptoms of sepsis were masked by the clinical symptoms normally associated with severe pancreatitis and, in any event, elderly patients in poor health more often than not do not survive severe attacks of gallstone pancreatitis. She was survived by her husband and 6 adult children.
