Close to $2 Million for Hospital Misdiagnosis
Posted on Dec 16, 2010 3:55pm PST
A Millbury couple has won a medical malpractice case against St. Vincent Hospital for nearly $2 million in damages, after a two-week long trial in Worcester Superior Court, as reported in the News Telegram.
Laura Ginisi, guardian for her 63 year-old husband Joseph, filed the lawsuit three years ago. She contended that her husband suffered from both mental and physical injuries sustained, while under the care of the Worcester hospital, beginning in January 2004.
The hospital allegedly misdiagnosed Ginisi's many strokes and delayed his cancer treatment. The hospital's mistreatment caused his legal blindness and he lost his ability to walk unassisted.
Mr. Ginisi, formerly employed as a truck driver and Wyman-Gordon worker, has been permanently residing at Millbury Health Care Center since 2004. Mrs. Ginisi, 59, is unable to care for him at home. She said, "He is not going to be the same. He probably will never be able to come home and live."
It began in 2004 when Mr. Ginisi telephoned his wife complaining that he felt dizzy and light-headed - the fact of the call alone was enough to alert Mrs. Ginisi, as her husband was generally healthy and never needed even an aspirin as an analgesic.
He had a CT scan taken when he arrived at St. Vincent, was told that old lesions were apparent and that he was suffering from "vertigo". In a joint pre-trial memorandum on file in the court, he was told to take medication and to see a doctor for follow-up.
His conditioned worsened, a subsequent MRI showed recent strokes, and he continued to visit the hospital until February 5, 2004. Mrs. Ginisi said, "A couple weeks went by and he couldn't see; he couldn't talk anymore. I was watching my husband literally dying in front of my eyes."
As he continued in a downward spiral, an intravascular lymphoma was revealed in a brain biopsy. It was at this time that he was transferred for treatment at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital.
Biopsy slides and blocks were not immediately sent from St Vincent to Mass General, contended the family's attorney, Jeffrey S. Raphaelson, which delayed his treatment. The slides and blocks eventually arrived on March 5 and the treatment began on March 8.
Raphaelson argued that Ginisi's chemotherapy should have begun sooner had the lymphoma diagnosis been made sooner. He said, "The family is pleased with the verdict, but obviously Joe remains significantly neurologically harmed, and there is nothing the jury can do about that. He's not at all the same guy before he went in that day."
Mrs. Ginisi stated, "I know hospitals see a lot of people a day, but you just want to think you are going to get the best care."
Though the jury found no responsibility for the doctors or medical staff, they did find the hospital responsible. $1394,160 has been ordered to be paid by the hospital in damages and an additional $500,000 for Mrs. Ginisi's loss of consortium.
St. Vincent was owned by Tenet Healthcare at the time of Ginisi's treatment and is now owned by Vanguard Health Systems Inc. of Nashville, Tenn.
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