James Woods and Hospital Settle Wrongful Death Lawsuit
December 3rd, 2009. By AbiK
After blogging about HAI’s (Healthcare Associated Infections) recently, and recalling some of the recent reports on MRSA, I was thinking about the James Woods trial–the one where his brother, Michael Woods, had gone to the emergency room at Kent Hospital in Rhode Island back in 2006 with a sore throat and vomiting; he wound up dying after a heart attack. The wrongful death lawsuit centered around James Woods’ charge that the hospital didn’t do enough to save his brother’s life.
Well, they’ve settled the lawsuit. Yes, the Woods family did get an “undisclosed” amount of money, but according to the Associated Press, they also got a belated apology from the hospital and an agreement from the hospital that a new institute, the Michael J. Woods Institute at Kent Hospital, will be created to to find ways to reduce human errors at hospitals.
According to AP, “The hospital agreed to invest $1.25 million over the next five years in the institute, which will look at how to reduce the risk of errors based on how humans actually do things, also known as human factors research. Its leadership will include a representative of Michael Woods’ family, as well as experts from inside and outside of the hospital.”
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[editor's note: the names of individuals mentioned have been withheld] I sued a nursing home chain for wrongful death, they verbally apologised through their employee in Oct-Nov 2003 after damage done to my mother. However three years later in 2006 they cheated me when the CEO conspired with my former late attorney to threaten me in mediation. I was recovering from a major surgery and caved in to signing off on only a fraud charge, having been lied to about the law by my attorney. I sued him 7 months later when I recovered from a pancreatic precancer surgery (I'm certain they believed I would not survive) and he died 2 weeks after learning I'd retained the malpractice attorneys to sue him, in his sleep at age 59. No kidding. The CEO and Risk Manager are both guilty of defrauding me. Their board of directors should fire the clowns for misoonduct and perform due diligence on their behaviors. Read my story at sunhealthcaregroupinc.blogspot.com
Debbie C
Newport Beach, California
Hi,
My mother died at the same age (49) at the same hospital, kent county in 2008. She went in for stomache pains,and got sent home. She had to be rushed in at 4am.She asked for an ambulance so they would take her seriously. They told her she needed her galbladder removed. she would have to stay a week before surgery. Well she died way before that cause she was neglected for 2 days at least! My Aunt also died there 3 years before. They starved her to death. 2 Months after that my mothers coworker died in their parking lot after being sent home!
Hi Dave, Some comments from readers just leave me at a loss for words–yours just did. I'm very sorry to hear of the loss of your mother. We put our faith–literally–in hospitals and the medical staff employed by them to make us well and unfortunately stories like the James Woods' story remind us that we are dealing with humans…humans who are not infallible…