John Murtha (D-OH) Dies of Medical Malpractice

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Greenberg & Bederman

Representative John Murtha (D-OH) Dies Due to Medical Malpractice

Being elected by ones constituents to serve in the United States Congress is certainly enough to deserve some recognition by the public. But John Murtha was one of the most effective, dynamic and controversial Representatives to ever serve on Capitol Hill.

Representative Murtha was Chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which basically means that he was in charge of determining how taxpayer money was spent on defense. It’s no secret that the United States spends an enormous amount of money on weapons and logistics for our military, and Representative Murtha was one of the key figures in charge of the purse strings.

As a result of his position, this made Representative Murtha a very influential Congressman. The United States defense budget does more than protect our nation and its interests. It also provides jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans. One congressional district might have a factory that makes one part of a jet or a tank, while another might have a company that provides defense analysis, while another might have a plant that manufactures rifle scopes.  Since there is not one Congressman on Capitol Hill who wanted to say no to federal defense spending occurring in his district, and since John Murtha was one of the men in charge of where defense dollars got spent, he had a great deal of pull in Washington, D.C.

By all accounts, he took a great deal of advantage of his position. He earned a reputation as an old school “Pork Barrel” politician, making sure that his district in Pennsylvania received a great deal of federal money. He received enormous criticism for this, but the interesting thing about “pork barrel” or “earmark” spending is that it is usually defined as “federal spending that occurs in every district except your own.” The spending that occurs in your district hardly ever comes under the same criticism as the spending that occurs in other districts.

Congressman Murtha could hardly be blamed for wanting to get as much money for his district as he possibly could. In the first place, he was hardly alone in securing federal dollars. And secondly, his district in Pennsylvania was economically crushed by the decline of the steel and mining industries. If he hadn’t done everything he could have for his district, he would not have been doing his job.

It should also be mentioned that Mr. Murtha was one of the first major public officials to come out against the war in Iraq. Considering his position among the defense and military community, it took an extraordinary amount of courage for him to oppose the war then, which must be admitted even if you didn’t personally agree with his opinion.

If there is even such a thing as an “ordinary congressman,” it has to be said that there was nothing “ordinary” about John Murtha. His loss on Capitol Hill will certainly be felt. And what makes his death even more tragic is that John Murtha’s death didn’t need to happen. Mr. Murtha was undergoing laparoscopic surgery in January when his intestine was inadvertently nicked during the operation. This cut led to an infection, which led to his death.

It should be mentioned that Congressman Murtha had what could certainly be called a “Cadillac” insurance plan. Members of Congress (as well as the President of the United States) are treated at Bethesda Naval Hospital, which is essentially the very best medical facility that the United States public sector has to offer. And the sort of surgery that Mr. Murtha was undergoing was not exactly experimental or cutting edge. That procedure has been practiced for close to twenty years. What this says to us is that even in facilities where medicine is practiced at the highest levels, no patient is immune from the dangers of surgical errors or medical malpractice.

It is extremely regrettable that Pennsylvania lost such a capable representative, and it is also unfortunate that Mr. Murtha’s children lost their father. But it should be mentioned that the families of everyday people who are victims of surgical errors and delayed or wrong medical diagnoses feel their losses just as keenly. And just as Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District will surely feel the financial impact of losing such an effective agent for their financial interests, regular Americans also find themselves in precarious financial situations when a husband or wife is taken from them due to the negligence or incompetence of a medical professional.  

If anything positive can be taken out of this tragedy, perhaps it will be that Representative Murtha’s colleagues might realize that placing arbitrary limits on compensation for the victims of medical malpractice is an unfair thing to do. These arbitrary limits (which are placed under the heading of what is called “Tort Reform”) create an artificial and often inaccurate financial limitation on the lives of human beings. They also prevent Americans from exercising their Constitutional rights to seek fair compensation for their damages.

Tort reform is one of the sticking points in the current health care legislation, as many Representatives believe that there should be a strict limit on exactly how much a human life is worth. Those aren’t the exact words that they use, but how else can you really describe these limits? In quite a few states, the compensation limit for medical malpractice victims is $200,000, no matter if the victim is a factory worker, or a teacher, or a Nobel Prize winner, or a Congressman for that matter.

Those who favor tort reform usually advance the idea that the reason these medical malpractice caps exist is because an abundance of lawsuits cause insurance rates to go up to unsustainable levels. There is no actual evidence to support this theory. The payouts for medical malpractice verdicts in 2008 were the lowest on record, and there has been no dramatic increase in the number of medical malpractice lawsuits over the past twenty years. Tort reform does not help doctors, hospitals or patients. The only people who benefit from tort reform are insurance companies, who are in no need of any financial safeguards whatsoever.

Greenberg and Bederman is an injury law firm based in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area.  A significant portion of our practice is dedicated to helping those who have been injured due to medical malpractice, and that includes medical errors, surgical errors and wrong diagnosis cases. We have helped malpractice injury victims in D.C, Northern Virginia and Maryland. John Sellinger, our medical malpractice attorney, is a  renowned litigator with a long and distinguished history of obtaining fair compensation for his clients. If you or a loved one has been injured due to a mistake by a doctor or surgeon, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

To learn more about John Sellinger, please read about John Sellinger, or watch his video on Youtube.
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Preventing Medical Errors

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Greenberg & Bederman

There are two major principles at work in any medical facility. The first is the Hippocratic Oath, which is basically an affirmation of what practicing medicine is supposed to be about. It includes statements like:

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

Despite having to battle through the economic realities of modern medicine in America, where the insurance companies wield influence in equal measure with the doctors, most medical professionals do their best to abide by this oath.

But the second major principle at work in most hospitals is Murphy’s Law, which states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And the number of medical or surgical errors that take place in this country every year seems to back that up.

The Institute of Medicine released a landmark report back in 1999, in which it was claimed that as many as 98,000 people per year die due to preventable medical errors.  Even with that report having been written a decade ago, both the numbers of errors and practices that lead to them have remained quite solidly in place. In 2008, The Washington Postreported that within a two year period, medical errors led to 238,337 preventable medical errors, and that was only among Medicare recipients. 

 

Medical errors can happen at any point in a patients visit to the hospital. They can happen in the waiting room, they can happen in the operating room or they can happen while you are recuperating in your hospital bed. Any department of the hospital, from the Admitting Room to the Pharmacy, can make a mistake that could conceivably kill you or leave you with severe disabilities.

Many of these errors are beyond your control. After all, you didn’t go to medical school. You don’t have the background in medicine needed to know if your course of treatment is the correct one. You don’t know if you have been given the right medication, or if your surgery is being done correctly. But there are elements of a hospital visit that are within your control, which brings us to a recent article in CNN on how you can avoid becoming the victim of a medical error.

The article is centered on a woman named Kerry Higuera, who was three months into her pregnancy when she experienced an episode of bleeding. She went to the emergency room, and due to what was essentially a miscommunication, Ms. Higuera was given a CAT scan that was meant for a woman with the same first name. This resulted in her unborn child being exposed to radiation, which can be extremely dangerous.

The story ends somewhat happily, in that Ms. Higuera’s child was born healthy, but that still does not change the fact that a medical error resulted in her child being exposed to needless dangers. The article then goes on to list a few things that you can do to help you avoid becoming the victim of a mistake.

Doing simple things like repeating your name, birthday and the procedure that you are in for can go a long way: Don’t ever just assume that the nurses and surgeons know exactly who you are and why you are there. Telling them as often as possible is a way for you to make sure. Don’t be shy about telling everyone from the candy striper to the nurse to the anesthesiologist your name, birthday and the reason for your trip to the hospital.

Don’t underestimate your ID bracelet: That ubiquitous bit of plastic that is placed on the wrist of every patient that enters a hospital might be annoying, but it could save you from getting wheeled into the wrong operating room. This is why you should always take a close look at your bracelet to make sure that the information on it is correct. You should also remember that nurses and doctors are required to check your bracelet to verify your identity, so make sure that they do so if they are able.

Have your chart read to you: It wouldn’t hurt to ask your nurse to read your chart to you. There might be a difference between what you think it says and what it actually does.

Don’t worry about being polite: There are many times when manners and etiquette are important, but a trip to the hospital is not one of them. If you are in the hospital, the odds are that you are in need of medical care or a surgical procedure. Considering the weight of what you are about to undergo in a hospital, being nice takes a backseat to making sure that everything is proceeding as it should. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. If something doesn’t feel right or if you aren’t sure that you are getting the treatment that you are supposed to get, you should say something.

You shouldn’t labor under the idea that medical errors only happen to other people. As attorneys who offer legal assistance to injury victims in the Washington, D.C. area, we can tell you with great certainty that mistakes by doctors, nurses or other hospital staff can happen to anyone. And in the event that one happens to you or a loved one in Virginia, Maryland, Baltimore or D.C, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free medical malpractice legal consultation today. We have been providing legal help to victims of medical malpractice or negligence and errors for close to twenty five years, and will do our best to see that you get the compensation you deserve for your injuries.   Remember, not all medical errors are necessarily medical malpractice. To learn more about medical malpractice, read our medical malpractice FAQ page
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