Doctors
agree to pay in negligence lawsuit
(As reported in the Naperville Sun,
12/11/02)
By
Ron Pazola
STAFF WRITER
Three
Naperville obstetricians have agreed to pay part of a $6
million lawsuit that alleged they were negligent in the
prenatal care of a child.
Destiny Wright, 34, of Streamwood, who filed the civil suit
in Cook County Circuit Court in 1998, claimed the alleged
failure of Drs. Linda Anderson, Christopher Olson and John
Josupait to give her daughter, Dania, proper care just before
her birth Feb. 5, 1998, contributed to the girl's brain
damage.
Anderson, Olson and Josupait are partners in the Women's
Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Midwifery in Naperville,
a private medical group previously known as C.G. Olson Ltd.
They also are on staff at Edward Hospital in Naperville.
Although the physicians denied any liability in the Dec.
2 settlement, Anderson will pay Dania Wright $1 million,
Olson will give $975,000 and Josupait will be responsible
for $275,000. C.G. Olson Ltd. must also pay $1 million,
lawyers involved in the case said. Edward Hospital was not
named in the suit.
Several attorneys said the payment was to avoid a jury trial
that could have resulted in a larger financial verdict.
The settlement was reached in Cook County circuit court
just before the case went to a jury trial.
Kurt Lloyd, Wright's lawyer, accused the doctors of not
paying close enough attention to Wright's condition. Wright,
a patient with Demir Medical Group in Bloomingdale, went
to GlenOaks Medical Center in Glendale Heights at midnight
Feb. 1, 1998, because she believed she was experiencing
decreased fetal movement in her uterus. A nurse at the hospital
performed a routine nonstress test, which showed the baby
had a decreasing pulse, a condition that suggests amniotic
fluid may be low, Lloyd said.
Because C.G. Olson Ltd. had a contract with Demir to answer
incoming medical night calls at GlenOaks, Anderson —
the physician on call at the time — did not come to
the hospital and sent Wright home, telling her by telephone
to keep her next office appointment with her doctor, Lloyd
said. Anderson assumed the physician at the hospital would
review the test the next morning and do the necessary follow-up.
The next day, Olson — who was on call at the hospital
— was supposed to review the test on Wright, but did
not check the nurse's station where he would have seen that
the mother's test results were unread and unsigned by a
physician, Lloyd said.
On Feb. 3, Wright kept her scheduled office appointment
at Demir, but Josupait, the on-call physician who was covering
all the patients in the office that day, did not examine
the patient or review her tests.
Lloyd said Wright's low amniotic fluid resulted in the umbilical
cord becoming kinked, depriving the fetus of oxygen and
causing her daughter's brain damage. Dania Wright now experiences
seizures, functions like a 6- to 9-month-old, has a vocabulary
of three words, can't walk or crawl and is partially deaf
and blind.
"These
people kept passing off responsibility of the patient like
a game of hot potato," Lloyd said. "This tragedy
could have been averted if the amniotic fluid had been measured
and if the patient's tests had been read."
Anderson's attorney, Michael Code, said Anderson was not
Wright's doctor, had never met Wright and was delivering
a baby at Edward Hospital when she received a call from
GlenOaks staff, who asked for a professional recommendation
concerning Wright's test.
"Dr.
Anderson acted properly by sending Destiny Wright home from
the hospital because her test showed routine results, and
she was going to see her doctor the next day," Code
said.
Olson's and Josupait's attorneys could not be reached for
comment Tuesday afternoon.
Jill Newham, manager of marketing communications at Edward
Hospital, said Anderson, Olson and Josupait still are on
staff at Edward and that they are considered in good standing
there.
GlenOaks Hospital and Demir Medical Group were also named
in the lawsuit. They must pay $900,000 and $1 million respectively.
