Remarkable Attempt by Sentara Obici Hospitals to Play “Hide the Ball”
Newport News attorney Avery Waterman has described a shocking attempt by Sentara Obici Hospital to hide critical information in a wrongful death lawsuit.
Avery represents the family of a woman who “mysteriously” bled to death in July 2008. In the medical malpractice lawsuit Waterman sought the “incident report” that contained facts surrounding the patient’s death.
Hospitals fight tooth and nail to hide relevant facts about patient deaths and injuries behind “incident reports.” They often claim that the “incident reports” are “confidential investigations” and that even if they prove malpractice that somehow “justice is served” by hiding the true facts from the public, the court and from its own patients (and families).
Waterman went into court and asked the court to compel the production of the incident report. According to Waterman’s blog, the hospital’s attorney initially told the court that this particular report was a “blood bank protocol document that was irrelevant to the medical malpractice.”
Eventually, the hospital’s attorney, Ted G. Yoakam, Esq. of Virginia Beach, Virginia, voluntarily turned over the incident report.
Guess what? Its wasn’t “irrelevant to the medical malpractice.” It told the facts of how this poor lady died.
So here’s the deal: not only did this lady’s family grieve when she died, but they have undoubtedly suffered enormously not knowing why she died until now. Now they are probably suffering again, knowing not only how she died but that the very hospital to whom they entrusted their loved one to care for tried to hide the very facts of her death.
But wait…..there’s even more to this story of hospital conduct.
After Waterman wrote on his blog about this now public document that the hospital voluntarily (eventually) turned over to Waterman the hospital’s attorney filed a motion against Waterman, seeking to have him reprimanded and thrown off the case. You can read Waterman’s blog about Sentara’s Attempt to Continue to “Hide the Ball” in this medical malpractice case.
The judge, in rejecting the “emergency petition” filed by Sentara Hospital said that Waterman could publish whatever he wanted.
Here’s the bottom line: Medical malpractice happens. We know it happens with alarming frequency. While many defendant’s eventually own up to their mistakes with integrity, others play the “hide the facts and deny everything game.”
You never hear about that from the tort reformers and it takes a lot of work by attorneys like Avery Waterman to seek the truth and bring it to the public.
[...] transcript of a recent court hearing involving a hospital in Virginia. We have previously blogged about this case and have received a letter as well asking us to remove the blog [...]