This may well be the single most important email i have ever sent to you.  please read this story, it concerns us all, take it and send it to every possible press contact that you have.   This is our chance to really unite and FINALLY get results.  

 

 

http://www.komotv.com/news/story.asp?id=16582

 

Do Secret Settlements Hide Medical Mistakes?
Click here to see a video of this story. 
January 31, 2002
 
By Emily Langlie

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KING COUNTY - It's estimated that as many as 100,000 people die each year from medical mistakes. You never hear about many of the mistakes because lawsuits are settled quietly and secretly. But, we dug behind the settlements and uncovered some surprising secrets.

One of them is the case of a little boy in Kent. You might remember the case of Chris Junk. The 8-year-old boy fell from a cherry tree and punctured his thigh. Days later he was rushed to Children's Hospital in Seattle fighting for his life from a deadly flesh-eating bacteria.

"From a poke to take your leg off...this was unreal...I was just devastated," said Dennis Junk, Chris's father.

Doctors amputated his leg. He suffered vision loss and brain damage. The public was told it's a disease that has many possible causes.

"Many bacteria given the proper circumstances can produce this type of infection," said Dr. Mohammad Diab.

But here's what we found buried in a court file in Kent: Chris junk was first treated at the Valley Medical Center emergency room. He and his dad thought doctors completely cleaned the wound before they stitched it shut. They didn't.

A large piece of wood was left inside. That's where the flesh-eating bacteria that almost claimed Chris's life was breeding.

You never found that out because the lawsuit against Valley Medical and the doctor who treated Chris was settled "secretly" for more than $7 million.

'Public ought to be aware'

"There is a lot of information that the public ought to be aware of that they are deprived of through these secret settlements," says attorney Fred Zeder. Zeder filed the lawsuit for Chris Junk, but because the settlement is secret he can't talk about it.

But here's what else we uncovered buried in those court files: The doctor who treated Chris, Kevin Foster, was in a program for doctors impaired by drugs or alcohol; he was not board certified to work in an emergency room; and just months before, Foster had treated a 34-year-old woman who had a history of stroke. Foster diagnosed her symptoms as stomach upset. He sent her home.

Less than 24 hours later the woman was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where she died of the stroke. The woman's family sued and settled, secretly months later.

Zeder says, "if a defendant is repeatedly sued for significant damages and catastrophic injuries I think the public has a right to know that and make up their own mind, just as consumers."

'It's the tip of the iceberg'

The images of huge metal retractors left in after surgery made headlines around the world. It happened not once, but twice at the University of Washington Medical Center. The university demonstrated how it could happen and told reporters it had changed its practices, but that's not what usually happens.

"It's the tip of the iceberg," said attorney Ralph Brindley.

Brindley sues doctors and hospitals. He says you'll never hear about the really shocking errors because they are settled privately and no one is allowed to talk.

Some of the settlements are reported in a publication called Jury Verdicts Northwest. But all too often you can't find the name of the doctor, the hospital, even the county in which the lawsuit was filed is confidential. But don't you deserve to know which hospital operating room left in a clamp, causing a woman's death? Or which doctor and hospital paid a million dollars to the family of a 40-year-old man left alone and dying from a heart attack in the emergency room? And which doctor and hospital paid $5 million to a man who suffered brain damage during back surgery?

Brindley says, "I think it's more a matter of letting the public have more a right to choose their doctors and more information about their doctors."

'Not an admission of fault'

Liz Leedom represents doctors accused of medical malpractice. Eighty percent of her cases settle, and she always asks that it be confidential. "Settlements are not an admission of fault and it says that very clearly in every settlement that I do," says Leedom.

Leedom contends hospitals do discipline dangerous doctors, but that entire process is secret too. Attorneys who see injured clients every day say it's not happening..

"That's the fox in the henhouse, we know that kind of discipline while its in place and may work to a certain degree, its not the ultimate answer," says Brindley.

Take the case of Kevin Foster. In his deposition over the death of the woman with the stroke he was asked if the hospital ever did an internal review of what happened. Foster said he wasn't aware of one. And if there was one, he wasn't part of it.

Six months later, it was Foster who would send Chris Junk home, a large chunk of wood still lodged in his leg. Touching off the infection that would claim the boy's leg, his vision, his memory.

Foster Was Not Fired

While Chris Junk has improved, he faces lifelong disabilities. Because of the confidential settlement, the Junk family cannot talk to us about what happened at Valley Medical Center.

In a written statement, Dr. Robert Thompson, the Acting Medical Director at Valley Medical Center in Renton says, "It is important to note two things: that the physician involved in these cases is no longer employed by the organization Valley contracts with to provide Emergency Department doctors. And Valley's share of the settlement amount was a very small percentage of the total."

A Valley Medical spokesperson says Valley did not pay any of the $1.5 million settlement in the death of the 34-year-old woman who died of a stroke.

Dr. Thompson also says the hospital did do reviews after both incidents to improve quality. He says Foster was not fired, but he and the medical group that employed him mutually agreed that Foster should move on.

Kevin Foster is now practicing in Arizona.

Should The State Step In?

While many lawyers oppose these confidentiality agreements, one firm, Luvera, Barnet, Brindley, Benninger and Cunningham tells clients up front the attorneys won't agree to confidentiality. Other attorneys say while they'd like to follow a similar policy, getting the case settled for a large sum is in the best interest of their client even if they have to agree to keep it secret.

Some states have considered laws outlawing confidentiality agreements. Washington lawmakers last considered such legislation about a decade ago.

For More Information:

Jury Verdicts NW -- juryverdictsnw.com