Let us take an average person. Francisco Torres was a retired assembly line worked with a cancerous tumor on his left kidney. Sounds like the kind of person the anti-health care reform lobby has been courting. Fear of death panels. Cuts to medicare. A year ago, Mr. Torres would have probably thought that tort reform was good for the country and would lower his medical costs.
Not any longer. When Mr. Torres went in for surgery to remove the diseased kidney, the doctor cut out his healthy one. See the Press Enterprise News: http://www.pe.com/localnews/sbcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_S_kidney03.46a9e43.html According to the pe.com:
A retired assembly line worker is suing a Riverside hospital and doctor, claiming that they removed his healthy kidney instead of the diseased one. He has to endure dialysis every three days to stay alive.Guess what? The hospital is now denying all claims in the civil suit. According to PE.com: “Hospital officials have denied responsibility. Neither Wahlstrom nor representatives from Parkview Community Hospital returned telephone calls made Tuesday and Wednesday.” If there is anything about medical malpractice claims that drives up the cost of medical bills, which almost all studies have disproved, it is the cost of frivilous and obstructionist defenses to those claims.
On July 14, Dr. H. Erik Wahlstrom, who was performing surgery at Parkview Community Hospital Medical Center, was to remove Francisco Torres’ left kidney, Torres’ lawsuit states. Instead, Wahlstrom removed Torres’ healthy right kidney before realizing the mistake, said Shirley Watkins, Torres’ Los Angeles attorney.
Shortly after surgery, Wahlstrom told Torres’ daughter what he had done, Watkins said. Torres said through an interpreter that Wahlstrom apologized to him. But Torres, who does not speak or read English, said he was still groggy from the surgery and has little recollection of what was said.
When you listen to the outraged rhetoric about how trial lawyers are ruining the country, you don’t hear the stories of people like Mr. Torres. Thus, in my upcoming blogs, I will tell some of those stories. You the reader get to choose. Protect Big Business from the predator trial lawyers, or protect you from the abuses of neglect and greed.
