Illinois updates in category: Medical Malpractice

During a two year period from 2004 to 2006 it was reported that over 188,000 lives were lost due to what is called a "failure to rescue". A failure to rescue occurs when a patient dies in a hospital...

Two lawsuits have been filed against Stroger Hospital in Chicago, Illinois claiming the hospital failed to timely diagnose breast cancer. One woman, Bobbie Jean Melton, died from breast cancer earlier this year. Her cancer was not detected in a mammogram, and when it finally was detected it was stage four and had metastasized to her lungs and liver. Christine Moore also filed a claim against...

Dimitria Alvarez's four-month old son died from taking over-the-counter cough and cold medicines on Oct. 8, 2001, and she has since sued the two sued two distributors of the drugs, claiming they should have known the dangers of the main ingredient and cautioned consumers.The lawsuit filed Wednesday is one of the first since Federal Drug Administration hearings last month where health experts...

Michael Cabay entered Loyola University Medical Center in March 2001 for a routine gastric bypass surgery. According to WebMD:More than 177,000 people in the U.S. had weight loss surgery in 2006."Roux-en-Y" gastric bypass surgery -- where most of the stomach is bypassed and a small stomach pouch is made -- is the most commonly performed weight loss surgery today, accounting for about 80% of all...

Madison County Court adopted new rules this year for handling medical malpractice cases, approved by the Illinois Supreme Court, according to Chief Judge Ann Callis. The new rules require anytime a medical malpractice case is filed that the persons filing the case and the doctor meet and talk of settling.A few years ago, Doctors saw their insurance premiums increase and dozens closed up shop in...

Illinois passed medical malpractice legislation two years ago that limited the amount a person could recover for pain and suffering in a medical malpractice lawsuit. There have been no challenges to date because only cases filed since the change would be affected and most of these lawsuits have not gone to trial, but this is about to change. A lawsuit filed in Cook County by Jeffrey Goldberg...

A young Louisiana child had lap band surgery to help her reduce her body weight. The obese child went into surgery on June 24, 2005 and had reoccurring complaints shortly after the surgery. She returned to Dr. Felix Spiegel's office on several occasions complaining of problems keeping certain foods down, abdominal pain and a choking sensation. The daughter of Warren and Melissa Strother was...

Paul Montgomery had surgery on his legs in 1998, which was not done properly and caused him to lose a leg. Montgomery underwent femoral bypass surgery on his legs and afterward had repeated problems. His right leg eventually had to be amputated because of all the problems that were occurring. The jury found Montgomery's doctor, Dr. Mark McCoy, was negligent when he performed the surgery on...

James Van Buren brought a lawsuit against his surgeon after his cyst removal surgery went very wrong. During the surgery, Dr. Sian Evans was attempting to drain the infected cyst and instead cut Van Buren's sphincter muscle. This caused Van Buren to lose control of his bowels.James Van Buren who is now 43 years old must wear diapers for the rest of his life as a result of the botched surgery. ...

Doctors and tort reformers continue to wage a propaganda war about the cost of medical malpractice premiums increasing because of outrageous medical malpractice awards. The real reason premiums are on the rise in some states, however, is what they are hiding from you. Research shows that lawsuits and jury awards are not causing the premiums to rise.In New York recent headlines complained of...

A jury awarded a Florida couple $21 million after it found the doctor 90% negligent in misdiagnosing the child's birth defect. Dr. Boris Kousseff failed to diagnose Daniel and Amara Estrada's first son with a genetic disorder, Smith-Lemil-Opitz syndrome, which severely limits his ability to live a normal life. The doctor's failure to diagnose the first child caused him to tell the Estrada's...

A Missouri hospital has been sued by the parents of one of its patients after the 8-year old girl received the wrong medication. The girl had been prescribed israpidine but was given risperdal instead.The girl suffered brain damage and kidney damage and will eventually require a kidney transplant."Sound-alike" medications cause the potential for medication errors. This arises from the custom...

A lawsuit was recently filed on behalf of Judge Robert Bork against the Yale Club of New York City. Bork a leading advocate in the tort reform movement and has pushed to limit plaintiff damages on numerous occasions. He is now in the plaintiff's seat and seeking $1 million in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages. Bork filed the lawsuit after he fell at the Yale Club just prior to...

A Menard Correctional Center inmate, serving a 70-year murder sentence, has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against two doctors and the prison's medical service provider.He claims, had a growth on his larynx been properly diagnosed, he would not have had to undergo two unnecessary lymph node biopsy surgeries that have left him suffering with permanent nerve damage.Last year he voluntarily...

At a recent administrative law hearing for unemployment benefits, a judge ruled that a nurse's discharge was not for cause -- even though she made many errors in the care of patients under her charge -- because the errors were the result of the multiple responsibilities that had been placed on the nurse. Therefore, the judge awrded unemployment benefits that the hospital had been contesting.The...