Articles Posted in Misdiagnosis

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A Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit received a jury verdict of $1.1 million against the defendant hospital. The case revolved around the medical negligence of a Cook County hospital, which led to need for several additional surgeries for the 60-some year-old plaintiff.

In 2006, the plaintiff was a patient at Northwest Community Hospital, where she had recently undergone a knee replacement surgery. In her second day of recovery following her surgery, the plaintiff fell while using the bedside commode in her hospital room.

Considering that the plaintiff had just had a knee replacement surgery, she was at risk for falls and should have had a plan of care in place that would prevent such falls from occurring. Upon investigation, it seemed that the plaintiff did in fact have such a plan of care in place – her physician had written an order stating that the plaintiff needed her knee immobilizer on and required two people to assist her when using the bedside commode.

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After reviewing a Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit for non-economic losses, a United States District Court judge for the Northern District of Illinois awarded the plaintiff $6.7 million in non-economic damages. Maldonado v. Sinai Medical Group, No. 06 C 4149 (April 2, 2010).
The Chicago medical malpractice case was brought by a Chicago man who developed paralysis from the waist down after being discharged from Chicago’s Mt. Sinai Hospital with an ongoing spinal infection. While the Chicago hospital had diagnosed the infection and began treating it with IV antibiotics, it discharged the patient before the infection was gone.

Two weeks after his discharge, the Chicago native was unable to control his bladder or walk and was rushed to Rush University Medical Center. The ongoing spinal infection had continued to eat away at the man’s vertebrae, which resulted in the removal of portions of his spine and ribs. The plaintiff underwent six surgeries during three months of hospitalization and was left paralyzed from the waist down.

The plaintiff brought a medical malpractice claim against the employees of Chicago’s Mt. Sinai Hospital. However, because the hospital’s employees were agents of the U.S. Public Health Service the Cook County medical malpractice case fell under the Federal Tort Claims Act. According to rules of the Act, the federal government was substituted for the hospital and its workers in the medical malpractice claim. The federal government admitted liability on behalf of the hospital. Therefore the only remaining issue for the judge to rule on was non-economic damages.

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