Malpractice Cap Reduces Award
Posted on Jul 25, 2010 1:50pm PDT
A 1.2 million dollar settlement isn't enough, reports the family of an elderly hospital patient, when less than 10% of it will be collected due to an award cap.
Macomb County News, Detroit News and Detroit Free Press reported that Washington resident, Valerija Milosevic, a victim both to a fall and subsequent facial burning during her stay at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital, received a compensation for her injuries that left her between $100,000 and $125,000. All legal fees, attorney fees, Medicare and Medicaid are being paid first.
The reduced amount isn't enough to cover providing their home's bathroom be made handicap accessible, instead it will go to the nursing home or pay for an appeal.
A statutory of $408,000 non-economic damages for pain and suffering in doctor/hospital malpractice cases, coupled with the jury's inability to even know about the statute, cut the Macomb County jury award to $565,000.
Milosevic's son-in-law Mike Torres hopes to prove the cap declared unconstitutional.
Milosevic was 75 when she entered Henry Ford Macomb Hospital due to a heart attack on October 22, 2007, and was improving at first. The heavy medication, however, made Milosevic agitated enough to remove her own breathing tubes and intravenous lines. The hospital then put her in restraints.
When a nurse decided to remove the restraints within minutes Milosevic was on the ground with a broken nose, a deep cut to her eye and forehead.
Further exacerbating the problem, a resident, attempting to treat Milosevic, placed an oxygen mask over her mouth that caused burns to her facial skin, trachea and left behind blackened soot in her lungs.
The resident, only on the job a few months, admitted to being fatigued when he used the electronic device and oxygen mask to tend to Milosevic's injuries from the fall. The electrocautery, which makes thermal energy, coupled with the oxygen from the mask, was placed too near Milosevic's supplementary oxygen -- though the manufacturer warns against just that -- causing Milosevic new facial cuts to become permanent scars.
Attorney Scott Weidenfeller for the plaintiffs, calls for hospitals to limit the number of hours residents are expected to work so that mistakes like these can be abated. The current push is to reduce first year residents to 16 hour shifts, by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, as well as increased supervision of these physicians-in-training and a watch of moonlighting.
Back in 2003 the number of hours worked by new residents was capped at 80 per week, whereas it had been at 120.
Following Milosevic's accident, pain medication, plastic surgery, among other medical procedures were performed, and she remained at Henry Ford Hospital Rehabilitation until January 2008.
In regards to her initial complaint, the cardiac arrest that prompted her hospital visit, bypass surgery had to be delayed until she could fully recover from the burns and subsequent surgeries.
Milosevic, living with the Torres family since 1990, was no longer able to "act as a second mother" to her grandchildren or "cook for the family every evening" in this, now the twilight, of her scarred life.
If you feel that your loved one has been hurt in a hospital and would like further information about medical malpractice and your rights, contact a Medical Malpractice Attorney.