Society, Torts

New York Hospital Sued After Amputating Woman’s Legs During Routine Surgery

Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, New York is being sued in a horrific case of alleged medical malpractice after Stacy Galette went in for a simple gynecological procedure and came out a double amputee.

The Brooklyn mother is suing for medical malpractice for the loss of her legs one year ago. Her lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, has stated that the hospital caused the problem after “they punctured her intestine, causing an infection and blood poisoning, and gangrene set in . . . resulting in below-the-knee amputations in both legs.”

If they punctured the intestine, it is unclear what the defense is likely to be at trial beyond a claim of waiver for such “complications.” It is the type of case that jurors react to harshly for defendants. For that reason, it is interesting to see the hospital (and its insurance carrier) not settle the matter as quickly as possible. This is one of the examples of why hospitals often complain about how insurers handle such claims. The law firms are often retained by the insurance company and may be less sensitive to the impact of such bad publicity on the hospital.

Source: NBCNew York

Jonathan Turley

14 thoughts on “New York Hospital Sued After Amputating Woman’s Legs During Routine Surgery”

  1. This is one of the examples of why hospitals often complain about how insurers handle such claims. The law firms are often retained by the insurance company and may be less sensitive to the impact of such bad publicity on the hospital. I don’t yet know much about this case, but as we do look into any & all reports that come to our attention, we’ll most likely have the surgical report from one of the MDs or nurses.

  2. As this particular case is still playing out, it’s too premature to know the billing details. But the next time you hear somebody c0mplaining that “insurance companies are greedy” (and I agree that the costs are outrageous) just ask yourself how you would manage the money of your insurance empire, if you knew that surgical errors alone cost you a Billion per month.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/washington/19hospital.html

    Or, that we have a disease-care system fraught with so much unmitigated fraud that the sheer breadth & volume has become a national embarrassment – but you, Mr. or Ms. insurance CEO, are going to pay for it anyway.

    http://www.consumerreports.org/health/doctors-hospitals/medical-ripoffs/overview/medical-ripoffs-ov_1.htm

    The unarguable reality is that American health care has brought this ugliness on itself.

    Ans now we all pay the piper.

  3. After watching “The Rainmaker”, also a John Grisham book, I would not be surprised at all if she was billed for costs of battling that terrible infection, and the cost of sawing her legs off.

    The ‘work of fiction’ is about an insurance company with a 100% no-pay policy directly leading to at least one death.

  4. Although there are few people in our society more critical of physician misbehavior than I am, I have always been very slow to criticize surgical teams who – by and large – perform to a higher degree of excellence than most of us ever have to.

    I don’t yet know much about this case, but as we do look into any & all reports that come to our attention, we’ll most likely have the surgical report from one of the MDs or nurses. (We get 4 or five every day of the year)

    As Anonymously Yours & Anon Nurse have pointed out,(I wonder if they’re related) there might well have been underlying medical conditions that contributed to this truly crappy outcome.

    So I’ll hold critical thoughts until I know a bunch more.

    But . . . but, if you ever want to hear about the surgeon who stuck a screwdriver into the neck of his patient, because the surgical pack was missing a titanium rod he needed . . . .

    http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1630844

    But it’s a nice fresh Monday and please don’t get me started.

  6. Anon nurse,

    I also wondered about that when I read AY’s post … not a problem here …

  7. Blouise,

    Indeed it is… (I tried posting earlier, but lost my comment due to a weak signal.)

    (And I completely agree that there are “too many unknowns”…)

    AY may be onto something — he mentioned diabetes…

  9. Would this have been covered in the initial discussion about the procedure with the attending physician … “Sometimes the uterine wall can be punctured resulting in complications … sometimes an infection can develop …” and then again listed under risks on the permission form? Were the physicians unaware if the puncture thus allowing the infection to develop? Too many unknowns …

  10. Plus there is the write up in the LATimes today about term insurance about the practice of rescission.

    “American General concluded that he had failed to disclose conditions, including bipolar disorder and pulmonary disease, that, according to his doctors, he did not have.”

    Oh boy!

    Another reason that all those folks that believe in those “frivolous” lawsuits that must be some kind of “socialist” problem, even as we see increased numbers of salmonella reports in eggs, spinach, whatever, and what about that smell tested shrimp, huh? Hey, I don’t think communist Russian citizens have any “recourse” either, but wasn’t that what made us different from them?

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  13. I smell a quick settlement for a large amount of cash. I can’t imagine the defense in a case such as this. I would not think that the hospital’s attorney’s would want to get these facts in front of a jury. Of course, we may be missing some of the facts at this point.

  14. This could have been caused by a number of competing factors. Until, we see the medicals it is hard to make a hard and fast line of what went wrong….first question I’d ask is, was she a diabetic?

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