VA Medical Malpractice: Infection Ignored

Palm Beach, FLSome hospital administrators argue that complete disclosure reduces medical malpractice litigation, but when it comes to many VA Medical Malpractice "incidents", secrecy seems to be policy.

Regardless of whether or not a mistake is made by a VA physician or other health care professional, every patient is entitled to an open and honest disclosure of facts, and that often includes an apology. Some incidents are clear mistakes and human error, while other things are just bad outcomes despite our best efforts. Then there is sheer negligence and disregard for a patient's wellbeing. Such is the case with Elizabeth M.

In November 2004 Elizabeth had a hernia surgery at the Veterans Medical Center, West Palm Beach, Florida. Since having the common and supposedly simple procedure, she cannot lift, pull, push or do anything the least bit strenuous. "I cannot live like this, not being able to do anything, all because of negligent doctors and hospital administrators," says Elizabeth. She is now in the process of filing a VA Medical Malpractice lawsuit against the hospital and VA doctors.

During recovery, Elizabeth says her dressing was never changed; nobody came by to check or redress the wound. She was discharged and returned a week later to have the staples removed. "The wound had opened by this time and there was some green "goo" coming from it," says Elizabeth. "When the nurse removed the staples, she just put some little strips--like band-aids—on this gaping sore." Elizabeth asked to see a doctor but she was simply sent home.

The infection got worse but it took a few weeks before Elizabeth could get an appointment. "When I finally saw a VA doctor he said I was 'tunneling' and he had to open it back up again," she says. She went through the procedure and was sent home again with instructions on how to change the dressings and clean the wound with long Q-tips, twice a day. "But there was a strong rank odor coming from my abdomen so I phoned the hospital and asked about antibiotics—the doctor said I didn't need any antibiotics." Wrong answer.

"I also told him that I was running a slight fever but he said it was low-grade and not to worry," Elizabeth adds. "I kept feeling sicker and sicker and this green goo began to smell worse. Finally I went back to the hospital and one of the nurses took a culture and sent it to the lab. She said it looked infected. I was scheduled to see the doctor the next day but when I returned he was out of town so I saw a physician's assistant instead.

The assistant told me I had a very bad staph infection; he prescribed seven days of antibiotics and I soon felt better but the staph infection returned. When I finally saw the doctor, he said tubes would have to be inserted into the wound and pump antibiotics underneath it to clear up the infection. I had a few blood tests and was sent home.

Soon as I got home the hospital was on the phone, telling me that I needed to return to the hospital because they were concerned I had sepsis. All along I told them that I had an infection. So now I was back in the hospital emergency room because I developed an abscess in the lower part of my abdomen. I had to undergo another surgery.

There was still some infection inside my closed wounds and I was told that there was a small mass--they assumed it was scar tissue but lo and behold it was still an infection that was not removed from the wound years ago.

I asked for my medical records. Nothing is mentioned of an infection a few weeks after my surgery; there is no record of me seeing the doctor's assistant and nothing is mentioned of the second time the doctor had to clean the wound from the "tunneling". If it wasn't for the nurse doing that culture, I don't think they would have acknowledged that I even had an infection until I went into sepsis."