The following blog is provided as an example of a Kaiser medical malpractice lawsuit to aid potential clients in how a lawsuit is examined and conduced. It is worth noting that situations similar to those described in this medical malpractice case could just as easily occur at any of the healthcare facilities in the area, such as UC Davis Medical Center, Mercy, Methodist, or Sutter.
(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this personal injury lawsuit and its proceedings.)
On September 10, 1999 Satals performed a craniotomy to remove four ccs of blood in the cerebellar pontine angle and also placed a tracheostomy. Despite placing the patient under general anesthesia and drilling holes in his skull, Satals did not clip the aneurysm. He also did not discuss with the family the risks and benefits of clipping the aneurysm. Aneurysms have a high risk of re-bleed, which has potentially devastating consequences. Later, Satals told Jane Doe that he did not want to sentence John Doe to life in a nursing home and sometimes doctors have to make those kinds of decisions.
John Doe was transferred from Kaiser to the Protector, a skilled nursing facility in Elk Grove, on September 24, 1999. At the Protector, the patient showed remarkable improvement. He came out of his coma, moved his limbs, squeezed his hands, tracked with his eyes and communicated using various methods. He started being weaned off his trach and tolerated several hours without the trach, breathing on his own. At the time of discharge on September 24, Kaiser had scheduled a follow-up appointment for one month. This was Kaiser’s routine appointment time for a patient transferred to a nursing home. At the Protector, Kaiser made no effort to have the patient examined by a neurologist or neurosurgeon. Instead, Kaiser placed Roger Taimes, an internist and gerontologist, in charge of plaintiff patient’s care. Taimes saw him only two times: September 30 and October 8. Taimes noted that John Doe would be brought back to Kaiser to have his aneurysm clipped if he showed significant improvement. By the time of his last examination, Taimes had noted many improvements. Nevertheless, Taimes never communicated with Satals or Phillips or anyone else at Kaiser Sacramento regarding these improvements and made no effort to have the patient evaluated by a neurologist or neurosurgeon. In fact, Taimes admitted that he has never recommended a patient have an aneurysm clipped.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.
John Doe’s progress at the Protector was halted when he suffered a re-bleed of his aneurysm on October 16. The nursing staff found him unresponsive in the morning of October 16 and transferred him by ambulance to Folsom Hospital, where he was evaluated and then transferred to Sacramento Hospital. He was diagnosed with a recurrent hemorrhage and acute obstructive hydrocephalus secondary to the recurrent hemorrhage. A shunt was placed. On October 20 he was transferred back to Kaiser. On October 22 John Doe underwent a coiling procedure at UCD to obliterate the aneurysm. Although it appeared at first successful, the aneurysm recurred. On December 1, 1999 Satals performed a clipping of the aneurysm and obliteration of the AVM, the procedures plaintiffs claimed should have been performed during the first hospitalization. Defendants contended that John Doe was too ill to withstand a clipping surgery initially. However, at the time of the December 1 surgery, he was in worse shape than when he was in the Protector. John Doe remained at Kaiser Sacramento until December 29, 1999. He was then transferred to El Dorado Rehabilitation Hospital, where he remained until March 1999 when he was returned to Kaiser Sacramento for a brief period before being transferred to Alta Bates Herrick Hospital in Berkeley where he remains.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.