In Lee County, Florida, medical malpractice attorneys won a $19.2 million verdict in a medical malpractice suit regarding now 3.5 year-old Kiarra Smith.
Medical Malpractice at HealthPark Medical Center
Kiarra Smith was born 3 months pre-mature and weighed only one and half pounds. Life began as a struggle for the tiny infant. Fifteen days after her birth, Kiarra was given an extreme dosage of nutrients, over 100 times her prescribed dose. The error led to cardiac arrest and other severe complications, including blindness.
Kiarra is permanently injured as a result of the overdose, and will spend the rest of her life in need of constant care. The Lee Memorial Health System commented on the the tragedy, saying:
“We acknowledge that a serious error occurred. Medical experts who reviewed the matter at our request believe that the child’s condition is a result of complications related to her extreme prematurity because she was born three months early and weighed one-and-a-half pounds.”
A Lee County circuit court awarded the Smith family $19.2 million in damages, but due to current malpractice reform caps in Florida, as well as sovereign immunity, the award could be diminished to only $200,000.
Hopefully, Kiarra and her family will receive their due compensation and justice will ultimately be done. Kiarra’s life will surely be one involving special and expensive medical treatment; treatment that $200,000 is never going to cover.
Medical Malpractice Lawyers in New Jersey and Philadelphia
If you or a loved one have suffered at the hands of a negligent medical provider, contact the Mininno Law Office for a free case evaluation or call for a free consultation at (856) 833-0600 in New Jersey, or (215) 567-2380 in Philadelphia.
Our medical malpractice attorneys are dedicated to earning compensation for patients who have been seriousley injured by negligent medicine.
Sleep deprivation can affect a surgeon or physician’s clinical and physical performances as severely as alcohol intoxication, and therefore increase risk of medical malpractice. But for a hospital, the task of ensuring that it’s surgeons are not suffering from fatigue has proven quite a challenge. Hospitals are in need of 24/7 coverage of clinical procedures, and must provide continuous care. Hospital trainees currently have work regulations set forth by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education that restrict them to a maximum of 16 consecutive working hours followed by a minimum of 8 hours off-duty. These types of regulations do not currently exist for fully trained physicians, who work multiple on-call and overnight shifts a week, strategically placing elective surgical procedures in between.
Today’s post takes a look at a nursing home facility in Gloucester County. The name of the facility is Manorcare Health Services. It is located on West Deptford and has 156 long term care beds. 
A key issue in the tort reform debate involves “defensive medicine.” Supporters of 
Despite this responsibility, the FDA has not done much regarding the recall since July 17, 2010, the date they posted information on specific recalled devices. The recall contained DePuy 
Today we are reporting about the South Jersey Health Care Center located in Camden, New Jersey. This is a nursing home that has 120 long term care patient beds. In a two year period, from November 2008 until October 2010, this nursing home was inspected on two separate occasions. During those inspections, the nursing home was cited for 16 separate violations. These violations included failure to meet proper safety code standards, lack of proper housekeeping and maintenance services, and food and nutritional issues. Many of the violations were found to occur often, and at least one of the violations was considered immediate jeopardy to residents’ health and safety.
Whistleblower and qui tam claims do essentially the same thing; they allow employees to file lawsuits against their employers for fraud or other illegal practices. Many times, especially in the healthcare industry, companies engage in fraudulent advertising to increase popularity of a product. Pharmaceutical companies are largely guilty of committing this type of fraud. Creating false or untested uses for a certain drug, or offering physicians large amounts of money (kickbacks) to recommend and prescribe certain drugs is very much illegal, and equally as dangerous.
Today, we are reporting on the Stratford Nursing & Convalescent Center located in Stratford, New Jersey. The latest published report shows all of the violations found during the routine inspections for the two year period between November 2008 and October 2010. The Stratford Nursing & Convalescent Center had 33 cited nursing home violations on the two combined inspection dates. The facility’s citations included safety code violations, life safety code standard violations, and others related to abuse and neglect. The level of violations were mainly rated as being pattern or widespread violations, with at least four considered to cause immediate jeopardy to the residents health or safety. Stratford’s ratings are a sure cause for concern, and it is quite clear that immediate corrective action needs to be taken. The facility’s noncompliance with one or more standards has caused, or is likely to cause, serious injury, harm, impairment, or death to a patient or resident. 
White House aides have provided that President Obama is strongly opposed to placing caps on damages for injured patients, but would be open to utilizing other avenues of resolution, such as “health courts” or special arbitration systems. 
Bob Lugton, of Brisbane, Australia, was declared the first “Aussie” to join the DePuy hip recall lawsuit. Mr. Lugton filed suit when his DePuy hip implant failed only 18 months after having been implanted. As stated in previous posts, DePuy and Johnson & Johnson claimed that their hip implant would last as long as 20 years, so Mr. Lugton was a very unhappy man after his brand new hip failed so quickly. Like most DePuy hip recall patients, Mr. Lugton was also found to have cobalt and other metals leaking into his body from the wear and tear of his hardware. When asked why he joined the DePuy hip recall lawsuit, Mr. Lugton reportedly stated, “This is not for financial reasons”, but to let other people know of the devastating effects of toxic cobalt and chromium levels on his health and welfare.