Access To Justice

We recently blogged about a health care worker in Florida who may have exposed thousands of patients to infection by reusing IV’s. Now comes news that a patient at LA’s famed Cedars-Sinai Medical Center may have been exposed to an overdose of radiation during a CT scan.

On Monday, Trevor Rees filed suit against the world famous hospital and the maker of the CT scanner, alleging that the hospital’s staff and the scanner’s manufacturer, General Electric Healthcare, were negligent in performing the scans.

According to the Associated Press:

“Hospital officials said the staff reset the machine’s computer to help doctors see blood flow in the brain and better diagnose strokes. However, “a misunderstanding about an embedded default setting applied by the machine” led patients to receive eight times the normal dose of radiation. About 40 percent of them lost patches of hair as a result.”

Rees filed his suit on behalf of 206 patients who received radiation overdoses that went undetected for a year and a half.

Rees says the hospital did not inform him of the overdose, though they did contact him to find out if he had any side effects.  It is yet another reminder that when people are negligent, or when organizations fear that their employees may have been negligent, they may be reluctant to do the right thing, which of course would be to immediately notify the victim and offer to compensate them for their injuries.  Instead, too often they hide, and it takes court proceedings to get people the compensation they deserve.

If you or a loved one has been the victim of medical malpractice, you may have legal rights.  Click here to find out more.