Family
sues hospital in death
(As reported in the Post-Tribune 8/28/03)
By Lorell Fleming, Staff Writer
Donna
Magdziarz says she wants justice for her husband’s
death that came after he was given the wrong medication
in a Hammond hospital in January 2002.
So
she filed a civil suit Wednesday against the hospital —
St. Margaret Mercy Healthcare Center — and four other
corporations. One of the other companies named as defendants
is a division of Cardinal Health, the company that runs
the pharmacy at St. Margaret’s Hammond site.
Joined
by her two adult children and her legal counsel, Magdziarz
discussed the suit in the attorneys’ Chicago office.
“Our
purpose in filing this lawsuit is to force hospital pharmacies
to use safe-labeling packages that are readily available
to them so that no other family has to ever suffer the loss
that we have,” she said.
“The
money is justice,” she added. “This is justice
for my family. My children and grandchildren didn’t
deserve to lose him.”
While
the amount being sought in the suit is not specified, a
medical malpractice law caps the hospital’s liability
at $250,000. Plaintiffs in malpractice suits can seek a
maximum of $1 million from the Indiana Medical Malpractice
Compensation Fund.
But
the Magdziarz family’s attorneys, Kurt Lloyd and Timothy
Cavanagh, maintain that this is a product liability case
involving negligent pharmacy labeling and is not subject
to the award caps set by Indiana law.
Donna’s
husband, Michael, a Hammond Fire Department captain, died
Jan. 7, 2002, after a nurse at the St. Margaret Medical
Healthcare Center inadvertently gave him the wrong medication.
At that time, Michael Magdziarz was recovering from successful
heart bypass surgery at St. Margaret in Hammond.
The
hospital admitted the error, and the nurse no longer works
at St. Margaret, said Robert Anderson of the Krieg, DeVault
and Galvin law firm in Hammond. Anderson is representing
St. Margaret.
“It
was a serious error, a regrettable error, and we take this
seriously.” Anderson also said.
In
addition, Anderson said the hospital has offered settlement
to the family that falls within the medical malpractice
award cap, but that offer was rejected. And the hospital
has paid all of the Magdziarz funeral and funeral-related
bills that have been submitted.
“It
sounds like someone trying to get around the cap,”
Anderson said Wednesday about the suit.
Cavanagh
called the medical malpractice caps unfair.
“Juries
have awarded millions of dollars to the families of similar
victims,” Cavanagh said.
As
for patient safety, Anderson said St. Margaret hospital
made “changes made immediately after this incident
to ensure patient safety.”
But
Anderson declined further comment about the changes Wednesday,
citing the the fact that litigation had just been filed
that day.
“Medication
errors account for 5 to 10 percent of fatal errors in hospitals,”
said Lloyd, an attorney representing the family. “Despite
this well-known error rate, St. Margaret’s and Cardinal
Health did not have any safe medication delivery systems
in place ... this tragic death was avoidable.”
Along
with Sisters of St. Francis Healthcare Services doing business
as St. Margaret Mercy Healthcare Centers, and a division
of Cardinal Health, Baxter Healthcare Corp., Baxter International
Inc., and Abbott Laboratories were also named in the suit.
