Forensics Talk

Gynecologist Accused of Mutilating, Abusing Hundreds of Women

Fox News.com
Monday, February 25, 2008

         

Australian police have launched an investigation into the rogue doctor, known as the Butcher of Bega, who is accused of mutilating and sexually abusing hundreds of women.

As ex-doctor Graeme Reeves, of Castle Hill, New South Wales, went into hiding Monday, The Daily Telegraph can reveal that other doctors accused of serious misconduct, including removing the wrong breast from a cancer victim, continue to practice.

Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione's office confirmed allegations made against Graeme Reeves by hundreds of women across the state was likely to be referred to the state crime command.

As many as 500 of his female patients have come forward with complaints that Reeves sexually assaulted them or mutilated their genitals during operations performed when he was illegally practicing as an obstetrician on the South Coast.

The police investigation comes 11 years after the state's medical watchdog was first told Reeves' treatment of one patient led to her death, in another case a baby died and the life of another patient was endangered.

Carolyn Dewaegeneire, a patient who broke her silence on a national TV news program last week, was admitted to Pambula Hospital on August 2002 to have a minor lesion removed from her labia... More

La. Nursing Home Hit With $1 Million Verdict in Bedsore Death Case

FindLaw

    

By KEVIN MCVEIGH, ESQ., Andrews Publications Staff Writer

    A Louisiana state court jury has awarded $1 million to the daughter of a nursing home resident who died from infected bedsores during his 26-day stay at the facility.

After a five-day trial the 12-member jury found that the facility's staff neglected 84-year-old Leon Nelms, causing his November 2004 death.

Brown Development Inc. and D. Brown Enterprises Inc. own and operate the Olive Branch Senior Care nursing home in Tallulah, La.

Nelms' daughter, Everline King, sued the companies in the Madison Parish 6th Judicial District Court.

According to the lawsuit, Nelms was admitted to the facility in October 2004. King said her father had no significant injuries or complications from his declining health at the time. He did have a small, early-stage bedsore on his left hip, but there was no evidence of infection, she said.

The sore worsened, become infected, and Nelms developed another infected bedsore on his right hip during his short stay at Olive Branch. He also suffered dehydration, malnutrition and significant weight loss, dropping 16 pounds in one week, the suit said.

The left-hip infection allegedly became contaminated from Nelms' feces and spread into his bone, according to the suit. He was taken to a hospital Nov. 16, 2004, and died six days later from the infections.

The suit alleged medical malpractice and ordinary negligence. King sought wrongful-death damages on her own behalf and survival damages of behalf of her father's estate for his alleged pain, suffering and loss of dignity.

The defendants maintained that Nelms received good care during his stay at the facility. They said the left-hip bedsore was already infected and his health already was declining when he entered the home.

After a trial the jury awarded King $500,000 in wrongful-death damages and $250,000 in survival damages for Nelms' pain and suffering. Jurors tacked on another $250,000 for the facility's failure to clean Nelms' bodily waste.

King's lawyer, Kim Ramsey Norris of Nix, Patterson & Roach in Shreveport, La., said she was proud to represent King, who took her father in and cared for him for more than two years before he had to enter the nursing home.

"It was tragic for her to lose her father the way she did, just one month after he went to Olive Branch," Norris said. "It was a difficult and courageous decision for her to sue the nursing home."

Defense counsel declined to comment on the verdict.

To comment, ask questions or contribute articles, contact West.Andrews.Editor@Thomson.com.

 

More Profit and Less Nursing at Many Homes

New York Times

By CHARLES DUHIGG

Published: September 23, 2007

    Habana Health Care Center, a 150-bed nursing home in Tampa, Fla., was struggling when a group of large private investment firms purchased it and 48 other nursing homes in 2002.

     The facility’s managers quickly cut costs. Within months, the number of clinical registered nurses at the home was half what it had been a year earlier, records collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicate.

   Budgets for nursing supplies, resident activities and other services also fell, according to Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration.

The investors and operators were soon earning millions of dollars a year from their 49 homes.

Residents fared less well. Over three years, 15 at Habana died from what their families contend was negligent care in lawsuits filed in state court. Regulators repeatedly warned the home that staff levels were below mandatory minimums.

   When regulators visited, they found malfunctioning fire doors, unhygienic kitchens and a resident using a leg brace that was broken.

“They’ve created a hellhole,” said Vivian Hewitt, who sued Habana in 2004 when her mother died after a large bedsore became infected by feces... Read More

Patient complains about doctor's comments

She says she was told: 'Do not get drunk and fall'

By CBS 4 Reporter Brian Maass, Special to the Rocky
May 25, 2007

An intoxicated patient filed a complaint with the city after a Denver Health Medical Center doctor issued discharge instructions telling her to not "get drunk and fall, causing harm to your head or body."

Patient Karin Howe, of Littleton, a certified nurse aide, accused Dr. Yadavinder Sooch of issuing "outrageous discharge instructions" and said the hospital provided "substandard treatment," according to an intent-to-sue complaint obtained by CBS 4 News investigator Brian Maass. It was dated Jan. 30.

Full Article

Doctors and Lawyers Agree on a Malpractice Bill

From Kevin M.D.,

Associated press

Monday, May 21, 2007

   

In a turnaround from previous years, both doctors and lawyers are supporting a bill that would cap monetary damages at $1 million in some medical malpractice cases.

Both the North Carolina Medical Society and the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers support a bill, set for House debate Monday night, that caps monetary damages in negligence cases at $1 million, but only for those who agree to go to binding arbitration.

"This is significant because smaller cases could be fast-tracked and get over with quicker," said Dick Taylor, chief executive of the trial lawyers academy.

The agreement is a marked change from previous years, when physicians have blamed rising malpractice insurance premiums on multimillion-dollar awards by runaway juries, of which lawyers usually receive a percentage. Trial attorneys wouldn't agree to award limits sought by doctors and hospitals, saying patients need financial protection for mistakes by the truly worst physicians.

Full Article

A hospital with a mentally-ill surgeon

Sued if you do, sued if you don't.

Hospital X was grossly -- if not criminally -- negligent, and you ought to award zillions of dollars in punitive damages for their misconduct! Consider this list of sins: this hospital knew that its surgeon was mentally ill. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and they knew it. He had been locked up in mental institutions at least twice before.

     The danger here was very real. Don't let them try to claim they didn't foresee danger. Why, once when that surgeon was operating on a patient, multiple witnesses will tell you that he "became disoriented during the surgery, forgot the names of certain instruments and at one point appeared to be talking to the wall!"

   Even after he was treated, two different psychiatrists who evaluated him refused to unequivocally state that he was competent. And they let him continue to operate on vulnerable patients. Without any supervision. Even though they knew he had a history of failing to take his medication.

Full Article

Hospital X was grossly -- if not criminally -- negligent, and you ought to award zillions of dollars in punitive damages for their misconduct! Consider this list of sins: this hospital knew that its surgeon was mentally ill. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and they knew it. He had been locked up in mental institutions at least twice before.

     The danger here was very real. Don't let them try to claim they didn't foresee danger. Why, once when that surgeon was operating on a patient, multiple witnesses will tell you that he "became disoriented during the surgery, forgot the names of certain instruments and at one point appeared to be talking to the wall!"

   Even after he was treated, two different psychiatrists who evaluated him refused to unequivocally state that he was competent. And they let him continue to operate on vulnerable patients. Without any supervision. Even though they knew he had a history of failing to take his medication.

Full Article