Access To Justice

Researchers have traced hundreds of deaths or serious injuries of hospitalized patients to tube mix-ups, according to a recent New York Times article.

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A California hospital is being sued for a giving a shot of morphine to a newborn by the baby’s parents. The California Department of Public Health had already fined the hospital $50,000 for the medical error.

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The maker of the anti-psychotic drug Invega has been sued by a woman alleging her 13-year-old son used the drug and suffered side effects, including rhabdomyloysis, which caused him to lose part of his leg. The suit accuses the drug manufacturer, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, of failure to include adequate warnings of the drug’s risks; the suit also names the hospital and treating physicians.

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Los Angeles County will pay $5.5 million to the family of a Redondo Beach girl who suffered permanent brain damage after a cheerleading accident in order to settle a medical malpractice case the family brought against County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, which treated the girl.

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Some 21 Avaulta mesh lawsuits have been filed against St. Mary’s Medical Center in Huntington, West Virginia. The suits  allege the hospital was negligent in letting Dr. Mitchell Nutt perform procedures on some of the plaintiffs  that he was “incompetent to perform” involving the Avaulta Support Systems.   Dr. Nutt is currently a defendant in separate Avaulta suit filed earlier this year.

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Gene test results are at the heart of a lawsuit filed by woman who claims she would not have agreed to a double mastectomy if her doctors had told her that she had tested negative for a breast cancer gene.

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A new study puts a $19.5 billion price tag on the annual economic cost of medical errors and the complications that can ensue. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) writes that the study, commissioned by the Society of Actuaries, estimates that medical errors accounted for more than 2,500 avoidable deaths and over 10 million lost days of work each year.

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A West Virginia woman has filed a medical malpractice suit alleging she suffered complications after surgery to implant the Avaulta Anterior and Posterior BioSynthetic Support Systems to treat her pelvic organ prolapse. Defendants in the suit are Avaulta marketer C.R. Bard, Dr. Mitchell E. Nutt, a West Virginia obstetrician and gynecologist, and Avaulta maker Covidien.
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Add Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and Bakersfield Memorial Hospital to a growing list of California hospitals where patients undergoing CT brain perfusion scans received accidental radiation overdoses – and where the scanner was made by Toshiba.

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New Jersey psychiatric hospitals are accused of medicating psychiatric patients against their will and without consulting an outside arbiter, according to a federal lawsuit filed against the state by patient advocates.
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