A woman filed a $5 million lawsuit against a Texas daycare after her 4-year-old son died of heat stroke while under their care. According to the lawsuit, the center violated the child's rights by failing to provide a safe environment in the state-licensed daycare. Investigators charged the center with reckless injury to a child.
Source: "Mother Sues State in Child's Day-Care Death" published in The Dallas Morning News.
South Carolina's 62 major hospitals are largely left on their own to investigate unexpected patient deaths, even if the death could involve errors made by doctors or nurses. In several other states, independent investigators with medical licenses and the power to order an autopsy — such as coroners — are called in when someone dies unexpectedly in a hospital.
However, in SC, even though they routinely investigate other violent deaths, such as those of auto-accident victims brought to hospitals, they are not directed by state law to automatically investigate the unexpected death of an average patient. To make matters even worse, coroners are dependent on hospitals to notify them of unexpected patient deaths.
No precise data exist on how many patients are killed each year by medical error in SC's hospitals, but extrapolations from various national studies indicate the number may range from several hundred to more than 1,000 a year. While state medical authorities don’t dispute this estimate, the state health department’s licensing division won’t release the yearly totals — from all S.C. hospitals combined — of patients reported killed by medical error.
Source: "Independent Probes by Coroners Urged" by John Monk, published in The State.
A Tulsa County, Oklahoma jury unanimously awarded $20 million in actual damages to the estate of a 7-month-old girl who died because of negligent care in a foster home. The lawsuit against her foster parent claimed that the child asphyxiated after being left unattended in a "filthy, roach-infested home."
The jury determined that the foster mother "acted in reckless disregard of the rights of others." The trial judge then instructed jurors that they could consider an award of punitive damages against the foster mother, but the jurors decided not to award any additional money for punitive damages in this case.
The state Department of Human Services, which placed the baby in that foster home, had previously paid $175,000 to settle claims against it in the wrongful death lawsuit. That amount was the maximum DHS could pay under the law.
Source: "Jury Awards $20 Million in Baby's Foster-Home Death" by Bill Braun, published in the Tulsa World.
