Recent findings have revealed a horrifying truth about the standard of healthcare in New York City hospitals. During the last five years, 468 people died in the city’s 11 public hospitals due to medical malpractice and negligence.
Lucia Ferreira, 24, won $1 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit against a Brooklyn hospital in 2006 for her first child’s death during delivery in 1997. Ferreira and her husband were excitedly awaiting the birth of their first child – a daughter. She was seven months pregnant when she went into rapid labor at home on July 1, 1997.
Unfortunately, complications arose as the baby ended up in a footling breech position, with her head stuck in the birth canal. The baby asphyxiated as she was receiving no blood or oxygen through the umbilical cord and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
A Bronx woman was awarded $110 million in 2019 against her medical malpractice lawsuit against the St. Barnabas Hospital. Keimoneia Redish sued the hospital and several of its doctors for mishandling her asthma attack in Dec. 2010, according to the NY Daily News.
The 48-year-old grandmother was left hospitalized and confined to a nursing home for almost a year after the Hospital’s doctors mishandled her asthma attack, triggering a severe brain injury. She ended up with speech and motor defects, leaving her crippled and suffering for life.
A Bronx man was left paralyzed following spinal surgery at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital (Columbia University Irving Medical Center) in 2002. Fourteen-year-old Edward Beloyianis visited the hospital for an operation to treat his scoliosis, a medical condition whereby the spine takes the shape of an S-like curve. The surgery left Beloyianis paralyzed for life. He died eight years after the surgery, according to the NY Times. His parents filed a medical malpractice lawsuit and the jury awarded $10,900,000 as compensation for their son’s death.
According to the medical malpractice attorney representing the Beloyianis’ family, the spinal surgery at the Manhattan hospital had left the victim
A Brooklyn woman died while giving birth at the Woodhull Medical Center on July 3, 2020. Shaasia Washington, 26, visited the medical center for a routine stress test. At the same time, she was pregnant and past her due date by a few days.
According to the Insider report, the Latino woman had abnormally high blood pressure while at the hospital. The staff decided to keep her under observation and induce childbirth with the help of Pitocin, a drug used to stimulate uterine contractions. The medical staff reportedly asked Shaasia if she wanted an epidural, to which she hesitatingly agreed.
A mother of two children died at the Lincoln Hospital in Bronx, NYC, after a minor procedure, following which the deceased’s family filed a medical malpractice lawsuit. Rosemary Abreu went to the hospital on Sep. 20, 2019, to remove a cyst from her thigh. While the procedure of cyst removal is simple, Abreu didn’t come out alive.
According to the NY Daily News, the 27-year-old mother suffered a cardiac arrest in the middle of the surgery, fell into a coma, and died shortly after. Her family has filed a $50 million medical malpractice lawsuit.
Abreu was a paraprofessional at the Department of Education
During the past five years, medical malpractice and negligence at NYC’s 11 public hospitals have caused 468 deaths. The NY Post’s analysis of the city comptroller data obtained through a Freedom of Information request found that the city has paid 56 families around $34 million since 2014. The city-wide compensations were given on account of settlements against wrongful death claims made by the victims’ families.
About 72 percent of the 106 wrongful-death lawsuits filed against HHC hospitals in 2014 are still awaiting verdicts. Out of all the hospitals operating under the NYC Health and Hospital Corporation, the King’s County Hospital had the highest
In 2008, Esmin Green, a 49-year-old Jamaican-born woman, died in the waiting room of King’s County Hospital Center right in front of the hospital staff who did nothing to help her.
Ms. Green was admitted as a psychiatric patient and waited for medical attention in the waiting room for almost 24 hours until she collapsed on the floor. She died from a blood clot, which had remained untreated ever since she arrived at the hospital.
The New York Court of Appeals added over $400,000 to the medical malpractice lawsuit award that was initially reduced to $650,000. The New York Court of Appeals added over $400,000 to the medical malpractice lawsuit award that was initially reduced to $650,000.
The jury deemed it right that the plaintiff should be awarded $2.5 million for the pain and suffering she experienced because of the malpractice. However, the judge in charge of the trial agreed with the defendant and slashed the award to $650,000. However, in June 2020 the Supreme Court of New York Appellate Division overturned that decision.
For the death of a 50-year-old woman from Pennsylvania after undergoing surgery for her spinal cord, the awarded compensation amounting to $10 million was deemed as void. This decision was after the court determined that the amount does not match settlements granted to other medical malpractice lawsuits for similar incidents.
