Hospital told to pay damages for mistaking babies

Even under American law, this would be a tough case to determine damages. How does a couple effectively argue that they have been wronged for loving a child for 16 years, even if it is the wrong child? Similar issues have thwarted efforts to get compensation for botched birth control methods as well. But those issues notwithstanding, $55,793 for giving a couple the wrong child, seems a little on the light side.

What happened to the other child? Isn't that a form of kidnapping?

And what about the other family?

Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://fishtail.tv

Date: 7/20/2009 7:08 AM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court has ordered a hospital to pay 70 million won ($55,793) in damages to a couple that raised the wrong daughter for 16 years because of a hospital mistake.

Seoul Central District court judge Kim Sung-soo said Monday the court made the ruling earlier this month. He did not give details.

Local media say the couple gave birth to a baby girl at the hospital in 1992. They began suspecting she may not be their daughter because her blood type A did not match theirs.

A DNA test confirmed their suspicions and the hospital acknowledged their mistake last year.

The hospital is refusing to disclose information on their biological daughter citing privacy.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

TV ad war begins over health overhaul

Date: 7/6/2009 5:40 PM

EDITOR'S NOTE — An occasional look at political ads and what's behind them.
By ALAN FRAM

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Staring at the camera, Canadian citizen Shona Holmes says a brain tumor would have killed her had she relied on her government-run health plan that would have provided treatment far too late. "Now, Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the U.S.," a narrator says darkly.

The television ad from a conservative group is dramatic — but deceptive.

In fact, President Barack Obama and Democrats pushing to overhaul health care want to create an optional, government-run plan to compete with private insurers, not replace them. As Obama told a health forum last week, "We're not suddenly just going to completely upend the system. We want to build on what works about the system and fix what's broken about the system."

The ad is part of a handful of commercials that are expected to grow this summer in both numbers and criticism as detailed health bills emerge from Congress and dozens of interest groups, companies and labor unions tussle over influencing lawmakers.

Through June 27, $31 million has been spent for roughly 47,000 TV ads on health care this year, says Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a firm that tracks issue advertising. That's double the roughly $14 million the insurance industry spent in 1993 and 1994 for the famous "Harry and Louise" ads credited with helping kill President Bill Clinton's health care drive, but a fraction of the $250 million Tracey guesses will ultimately be spent this year.

Hoping to shape the early debate, the initial ads are "really being aimed at some people in the administration, some people on Capitol Hill, a whole bunch of reporters, a few bloggers," Tracey said. As Congress' direction becomes clearer and interest groups seek public support, "then I think you're going to see the spending go on a hockey stick curve straight up," he said.

So far, Tracey said about $15 million has been spent on ads favoring the Democrats' push to revamp the health care system and $4 million to oppose it. Another $12 million has gone to ads generally favoring better health care — nearly all of it by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, representing drug makers, which hopes its market will expand if more people have insurance.

These figures might be too low, with several groups reporting higher figures reflecting costs Tracey doesn't track.

Ken Johnson, spokesman for the pharmaceutical group, says the association has spent tens of millions on television ads since late 2008, thanking lawmakers for supporting previous health initiatives or urging them to support a comprehensive effort this year.

"It's conditioning the environment, it's setting the table for the debate to come," he said.

The ad with Shona Holmes — who says she borrowed and saved money for a crucial operation in the United States — exemplifies how groups are intent on bending the debate toward their agendas.

Its sponsor, Patients United Now, is an offshoot of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a privately funded, Washington-based conservative group that believes in limited government and cutting taxes. Among its directors are businessman and conservative activist Art Pope and James C. Miller, a top Reagan administration official.

The group says it has spent nearly $1.8 million running the ad in Washington, D.C., and 11 states with senators on committees writing health care bills or ones seen as wavering. Patients United spokeswoman Amy Menefee says the ad is fair because giving government more control over health care would be a slippery slope toward increasing the federal role, and because some Democrats still favor government-only insurance.

Dominating the spending among opponents is Conservatives for Patients Rights, led and largely financed by Rick Scott, who was ousted as chief of the Columbia/HCA health care company during a fraud probe that ultimately saw the firm plead guilty to overbilling charges. Spokesman Brian Burgess says the group has spent over $4.5 million on TV ads that have run hundreds of times this year, mostly criticizing public health coverage.

On the other side, progressive and labor groups have not been shy about using ads to assail Democrats viewed as insufficiently loyal in the struggle.

Health Care for America Now says it plans to spend $11 million on TV ads. The group is funded by labor, liberal groups and the progressive Atlantic Philanthropies, an international grant-making foundation whose president, Gara LaMarche, worked previously for billionaire Democratic donor George Soros.

Its latest ad: A $1.1 million campaign aimed at prodding senators of both parties from 10 states to support a public health insurance option. Targets include Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who HCAN says has not shown strong enough support for the government-run option.

"Tell Senator Wyden, it's your health, it should be your choice," the ad says.

MoveOn.org and other liberal groups began airing a 60-second ad on Friday in Louisiana criticizing Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., for not yet embracing a public insurance plan. They also dropped plans to run ads challenging Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., after she expressed support for a bill containing a government insurance option.

Last Tuesday, the Laborers International Union of North America began airing ads in the home states of Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., criticizing them for considering a tax on workers' employer-provided medical benefits to help finance the overhaul.

Union spokesman Jacob Hay says the ads, which had been scheduled to run through Friday, were pulled after a request from Baucus aides. Baucus has agreed to meet with the union's president, Terence O'Sullivan, to discuss the legislation.

"Ads really do get their attention quickly," Hay said.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Coroner criticizes doctors over girl who starved

Date: 2/16/2009


LONDON (AP) — An 8-year-old girl starved herself to death because of an extreme dental phobia that doctors failed to diagnose properly, a British coroner said Monday.

Coroner Emma Carlyon said staff did not realize the severity of the condition afflicting Sophie Waller, who died in December 2005. Carlyon said this prevented the girl "from receiving the medical support that could have prevented her death."

Witnesses at the inquest testified that Sophie had an extreme phobia of dentists and refused to eat, sleep or drink after her baby teeth became loose. Medical staff ultimately decided to pull out all her baby teeth under general anesthetic in November 2005.

She was sent home a few days later but would not eat and died three weeks after the operation.

Her parents said they contacted doctors and a psychologist but no one saw Sophie in person before she died.

The Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, 250 miles (400 kilometers) southwest of London, acknowledged there had been failures in Sophie's care, and said it had made changes.

A coroner's inquest is required in Britain to establish the facts when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes, but has no power to punish anyone.

Carlyon gave a narrative verdict, in which a coroner simply outlines the circumstances that led to the death or deaths.

She said the immediate cause of Sophie's death was kidney failure due to dehydration and starvation.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Rapid rise seen in fatal medication errors at home

Date: 07/28/2008 04:04 PM

By CARLA K. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO (AP) _ Deaths from medication mistakes at home, like actor Heath Ledger's accidental overdose, rose dramatically during the past two decades, an analysis of U.S. death certificates finds.

The authors blame soaring home use of prescription painkillers and other potent drugs, which 25 years ago were given mainly inside hospitals.

"The amount of medical supervision is going down and the amount of responsibility put on the patient's shoulders is going up," said lead author David P. Phillips of the University of California, San Diego.

The findings, based on nearly 50 million U.S. death certificates, are published in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine. Of those, more than 224,000 involved fatal medication errors, including overdoses and mixing prescription drugs with alcohol or street drugs.

Deaths from medication mistakes at home increased from 1,132 deaths in 1983 to 12,426 in 2004. Adjusted for population growth, that amounts to an increase of more than 700 percent during that time.

In contrast, there was only a 5 percent increase in fatal medication errors away from home, including hospitals, and not involving alcohol or street drugs.

Abuse of prescription drugs plays a role, but it's unclear how much. Valid prescriptions taken in error, especially narcotics such as methadone and oxycodone, account for a growing number of deaths, said experts who reviewed the study.

The increases coincided with changing attitudes about painkillers among doctors who now regard pain management as a key to healing. Multiple prescription drugs taken at once — like the sleeping pills, painkillers and anxiety drugs that killed "Dark Knight" star Ledger — also play a part, experts said.

"When we see overdoses, we're seeing many more mixed drug overdoses," said Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners and director of autopsies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Jentzen said autopsies are much more likely to include toxicology tests today than 25 years ago, which would contribute to finding more fatal medication errors as cause of death.

But Phillips said there were no significant increases in other poisonings like suicidal overdoses or homicides, so more testing doesn't explain the huge increase. The analysis excluded suicides, homicides and deaths related to side effects.

The increase was steepest in death rates from mixing medicine with alcohol or street drugs at home; that death rate climbed from 0.04 per 100,000 people in 1983 to 1.29 per 100,000 people in 2004.

Many patients ignore the risk of mixing alcohol with prescriptions, said Cynthia Kuhn of Duke University Medical Center, who was not involved in the study.

"They think, 'Oh, one drink won't hurt.' Then they have three or four," Kuhn said.

The increase in deaths was highest among baby boomers, people in their 40s and 50s.

"We're sort of drug happy," said boomer Dr. J. Lyle Bootman, the University of Arizona's pharmacy dean, who was not involved in the research. "We have this general attitude that drugs can fix everything."

People share prescriptions at an alarming rate, Bootman said. One recent study found 23 percent of people say they have loaned their prescription medicine to someone else and 27 percent say they have borrowed someone else's prescription drugs.

Kenneth Kolosh, a statistics expert at the National Safety Council, praised the study but said improved attention to coding location on death certificates may account, in part, for the huge increases the researchers found.

Phillips countered that home deaths from any cause increased relatively little during the time period, so better coding doesn't explain the change.

Michael R. Cohen, president of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, said more states should require pharmacists to teach patients about dangerous drugs and insurers should pay pharmacists to do so.

___

On the Net:

Archives of Internal Medicine: http://www.archinternmed.com

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Oregon doctor ordered to Australia to face trial on manslaughter charges in patient deaths

Date: 07/15/2008 10:40 PM

By WILLIAM McCALL
Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) _ An Oregon doctor charged with manslaughter in the deaths of three patients at an Australian hospital has been ordered to return to Australia to stand trial.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis Hubel said Tuesday he had ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to return Dr. Jayant Patel to Australian authorities by July 21.

The Marshals Service said the agency had begun extradition but declined to give any details.

Dale Ortmann, a marshals spokesman, also declined to release any details at an evening news conference Tuesday on the steps of the federal courthouse in Portland.

But Ortmann said that, in general, marshals can accompany a prisoner to a foreign country or authorities from the nation requesting extradition can handle the transfer themselves.

Patel worked at the Bundaberg Base Hospital in the Australian state of Queensland after leaving Kaiser Permanente hospital in Portland in 2001 following a series of lawsuits and an investigation that led the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners to restrict his practice statewide.

The national news agency, the Australian Associated Press, reported that U.S. marshals were expected to hand Patel over to two senior Queensland police officers for the flight back to Australia.

Patel was arrested March 11 by FBI agents acting on an extradition request from Queensland authorities following a public outcry in Australia that began in 2005 over his role in the deaths of patients at Bundaberg.

The complaints included failure to stop internal bleeding in one patient who later died, tearing another patient's esophagus and removing healthy tissue while leaving cancerous tissue behind.

In addition to manslaughter, Patel is charged with fraud and causing grievous bodily harm in Australia. He could face a possible life sentence if convicted.

Patel, 58, is a U.S. citizen who was born in India and trained in New York, where he was disciplined by the state early in his career for failing to examine patients before operating on them.

He moved to Portland to join Kaiser Permanente in 1989 and was sued several times — including at least one lawsuit that is still pending. The hospital reviewed 79 separate complaints against him before the state restricted his practice.

The AAP said the extradition had been awaiting the approval of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.