Thursday, May 29, 2008 10:23 PM CDT
Two Ky. widows sue U.S. government over husbands' VA deaths
By the Associated Press
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) — Two Kentucky widows are suing the U.S. government over surgical care they say killed their husbands at a southern Illinois Veterans Affairs hospital where surgeries were halted last year after a spike in patient deaths.
The lawsuits filed in federal court in East St. Louis on behalf of the widows of Robert Shank III and James Marshall seek a combined $22 million in damages. The suits, filed March 20 and April 29, respectively, name only the federal government, which runs the Veterans Affairs system that includes the Marion, Ill., hospital where the men were treated.
Both were patients of surgeon Jose Veizaga-Mendez, who resigned last August three days after 50-year-old Shank, of Murray, Ky., bled to death after gallbladder surgery. Marshall, 61, of Benton, Ky., died of a blood infection last July, six days after Veizaga-Mendez performed a lymph node biopsy, according to the lawsuits.
Katrina Shank seeks $12 million in damages, while Darla Marshall is suing for $10 million.
An attorney for the women, Stan Heller, declined immediate comment Thursday, saying only that ``now we have to let the legal process take its normal path.''
VA spokesman Matt Smith said in a statement that discussing litigation would be ``inappropriate.'' But he noted that the department since January has been contacting families ``to review the care received over the past two years and also said it would assist patients and families, who believe they have been harmed, in their efforts to receive compensation.''
The federal government has not yet filed responses to the lawsuits.
Within a month of Shank's death, surgeries at the Marion site — which serves veterans from southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana and western Kentucky — were halted after the VA found that at least nine deaths between October 2006 and March 2007 were ``directly attributable'' to substandard care there.
Those deaths did not include Robert Shank and James Marshall, who died months later.
Still, the lawsuits allege, ``many or all of these patients who died between October 2006 and March 2007 were patients of Dr. Veizaga-Mendez.''
Of an additional 34 cases the VA investigated, 10 patients died after receiving questionable care that complicated their health, officials said. Investigators could not determine if the actual care caused those deaths.
Interim administrators have been in place at the Marion VA since September, shortly after the site's director, chief of staff, chief of surgery and an anesthesiologist were moved to other positions or placed on leave. The anesthesiologist since has quit.
Minor surgical procedures resumed at the Marion hospital earlier this month, but the VA has not said when major operations would return or permanent management would be in place there.
Both wrongful-death lawsuits accuse the government of negligence for allegedly not adequately checking Veizaga-Mendez's background before hiring him in January 2006.
Katrina Shank and Darla Marshall claim a better check would have uncovered Veizaga-Mendez's ``history of providing substandard care to his patients'' in Massachusetts, where he was under investigation for allegedly botching seven cases in 2004 and 2005, including two that resulted in deaths.
Veizaga-Mendez's Illinois license was indefinitely suspended by regulators last October. He was permanently barred from practicing medicine in Massachusetts last November, a move that also requires him to resign any other state medical licenses he may hold and withdraw pending license applications. He has also made payouts in two Massachusetts malpractice lawsuits.
Veizaga-Mendez's whereabouts are unclear. He has no listed telephone number and did not respond to a message left by an AP reporter at a Massachusetts home listed as an address for his wife.
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krusayda wrote on May 30, 2008 8:14 AM: