Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

It is one of the things we all most fear – and over which we have the least control – when entering the hospital: preventable errors. Recently, Portland’s main newspaper has been reporting on an equally disturbing problem related to preventable errors and Oregon medical malpractice: the fact that because some of the reporting hospitals do regarding their mistakes seems to be coming up short. As a result, there is not as much data available to doctors and medical administrators as there should be. That, in turn, may mean that some hospital errors are going unaddressed because word of them is not making its way through the state health system.

The issue was brought to light by a recent article in The Oregonian. The paper noted that “at least 34 patients died as a result of preventable mistakes in Oregon hospitals last year.” The real issue, however, is that fully one-third of Oregon’s hospitals “chose not to report a single error in 2010.” As the paper notes, “this strains credulity.”

Hospital reporting is an issue I’ve addressed before – and one that should command a lot more public attention than it does. It is, of course, natural that few people like to acknowledge error, but when reporting data could lead to better procedures and, eventually, a drop in Oregon hospital deaths we have entered a realm where pride has no place.

As the head of Oregon’s Patient Safety Commission told The Oregonian: “The truth is, the culture of patient safety is not where it needs to be.” That is a sad analysis to hear from a government official charged with ensuring that professionals do something that, frankly, they should not need to be told to do.

That is why, regrettably, our legal system also has a role in medical practice. A Portland medical malpractice lawyer can help families coping with the tragedy of a preventable Oregon medical error. Justice, in such situations, can be hard to fight for. So it is important to know that you have experienced, compassionate legal help when you need it most.

The Oregonian: Oregon hospitals reported 136 preventable errors last year, 34 resulting in death

The Oregonian: Avoiding errors by reporting them

Resource:
Oregon Patient Safety Commission

The US Supreme Court heard arguments this week in a case that raises important issues about personal privacy, patients relationships with their doctors and what some see as corporate America’s right to see people’s personal data because doing so may aid their marketing efforts.

According to the Burlington Free Press, the case turns on “a Vermont law that restricts the use of doctors’ prescription records for marketing purposes.” Pharmaceutical companies have challenged the law, arguing that they need to know which doctors are prescribing generic as opposed to brand-name drugs so that they can target their marketing to doctors who, they feel, should opt for generic medicines less often. The Free Press reports that 35 states, the District of Columbia, the US Justice Department and “organizations representing more than 100,000 physicians” back the law, while “numerous business and research groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce” oppose it. The measure went into effect last year. A Federal District judge upheld it, but was reversed by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals.

From a patients’ perspective challenges to this law raise several potentially disturbing issues. As patients we presume our conversations with out doctors are private. It is unclear from the court arguments whether personally identifiable information is being shared with drug companies. Also, should patients have some right to know whether their doctor’s prescribing decisions were effected by a marketing hard-sell from drug manufacturers? Considering the number of scandals in recent years surrounding medical marketing these are very legitimate questions for patients to ask.

Unfortunately, many people are uncomfortable with the idea of asking their doctor these sort of pointed questions. Answers that would have been useful when a person is sick may emerge only later as part of a medical malpractice or wrongful death case.

Washington and Oregon personal injury attorneys are here to help level the playing field between average citizens and companies who put their marketing plans ahead of the public good. The Supreme Court will issue a ruling in the Vermont case later this year, and it will bear close scrutiny at that time. When corporations are out mainly for themselves we need to rely on our courts to protect ordinary citizens rights to both privacy and crucial health-related information.

The Burlington Free Press: Supreme Court questions Vermont’s limits on use of prescription data

Following up a story I wrote about in February, The Oregonian reports that federal regulators have cleared Portland Adventist Medical Center of wrongdoing in a high-profile case in which a man died of a heart attack in the hospital’s parking lot.

As regular readers will recall, 61-year-old Birgilio Marin-Fuentes suffered a heart attack as he drove into Adventist’s parking facility on February 10. He crashed his car into a wall, but lay in the vehicle unnoticed for more than 20 minutes despite the presence of surveillance cameras in the facility and the fact that the emergency room door was only a short distance away.

Police eventually arrived to help the stricken man. There is some dispute over how the hospital acted at this point. Some accounts say a police officer who ran to the emergency room was rebuffed by desk staff there and told the emergency needed to be telephoned in before hospital staff could respond – despite the emergency being on their own property. Hospital spokespersons have rejected that version of events. Martin-Fuentes died shortly after being moved inside the hospital building.

A federal investigation has now cleared the hospital of wrongdoing, but it is important to understand that this relatively narrow decision does not necessarily close the case in legal terms. According to The Oregonian, the federal review, conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, found that no federal laws were violated. That review, however, was relatively narrow. Specifically, it addressed the 1986 law that “requires all Medicare participating hospitals with emergency departments to treat any critically ill patients on their premises, including parking lots,” the newspaper notes.

In this potential case of Oregon medical malpractice, however, the hospital’s responsibility may extend beyond a narrow reading of federal law. While it is true that Adventist eventually offered care to the accident victim the manner of their response – particularly the alleged overly technical attention to procedures designed to alert the hospital to accident victims across town as opposed to in their own parking garage – raises issues of both ethics and civil law. Put simply, the fact that Adventist violated no federal law, narrowly defined, does not mean that they may not still be responsible for a wrongful hospital death or case or Oregon medical malpractice on their property. A Portland hospital death and medical malpractice attorney can advise family members caught in unthinkable situations like this one of the best way to obtain justice when a narrow reading of federal criminal laws does not adequately address the harm suffered by victims and their families.

The Oregonian: Federal regulators clear Portland Adventist Medical Center in parking lot emergency

Oregon Public Broadcasting: Adventist passes review in parking lot death

A report released this week by the consumer watchdog organization Public Citizen raises serious questions about the conduct of state medical boards, according to an analysis published by the Los Angeles Times. The charges, in turn, raise broader questions about the conduct of hospitals and doctors and the prevalence in our health care system of doctors who are problematic at best. Here in Oregon it must make conscientious citizens wonder whether instances of medical malpractice or even wrongful deaths have been allowed to occur as a result of insufficient professional oversight.

As outlined by Public Citizen on the group’s website (see link below) the study examined 20 years of data (1990-2009) regarding doctors who have had “one or more clinical privilege actions,” meaning that they have had some or all of their hospital or emergency privileges withdrawn because of misconduct, incompetence or some other professional infraction. It then compared these numbers with the numbers of physicians sanctioned over the same period by state medical boards. The analysis yields a shocking result: nationwide, 55% of doctors disciplined by their hospitals suffered no further punishment from their state licensing board.

When thinking about the possible implications of this information for Oregon medical malpractice we can take some comfort from the fact that our state had one of the better records on this score. In Oregon, 41.48% of doctors who had some or all of their hospital privileges revoked over the study period suffered no state-imposed sanction. That number is obviously far too high, though it is better than what one finds in most other states (for comparative purposes: Colorado had the lowest rate of unsanctioned doctors at 31.63%; Hawaii was worst with a truly shocking 77.08%).

Some will argue that the gap between hospital-punished and state-punished doctors is proof that individual hospitals hold their doctors to higher standards than the minimum prescribed by state medical boards, and, in fairness, it is reasonable to assume that at least some of the discrepancy can be accounted for in this manner. It is, however, equally reasonable to assume that a good proportion of the difference can be attributed to state medical boards being slow to act or, perhaps, applying standards that are too lax. That, in turn, raises the question: who is protecting patients from doctors who, after being disciplined at one hospital, simply move on to another?

The ideal, of course, is for all physicians to be properly supervised and, when necessary, disciplined. It is difficult for individual patients to assess a doctor’s credentials – that is why we have state medical boards in the first place. When patient are injured because regulatory bodies failed to act properly, it is time for our courts to get involved and to act as a final line of defense – and accountability – between doctors and the public. A Portland medical malpractice and wrongful death attorney can offer invaluable advice and assistance to families who believe a doctor who should not have been practicing has damaged their lives.

Los Angeles Times: Report: States fail to discipline rogue doctors

Washington Post: Report: State boards don’t punish all doctors sanctioned by hospitals

Public Citizen’s News Release on the Study (this page includes a link to the full report)

A California nursing home has been ordered to pay the largest fines allowed under state law following the death of a patient. For us here in Oregon this nursing home neglect and abuse case, though it comes from out-of-state, serves as a powerful reminder of the important role courts and regulators play in keeping watch over those charged with helping vulnerable seniors.

According to a report in the Orange County Register the case stems from the death of 93-year-old Donald Bodkin, who, the paper reports, “died in September from an undetected ruptured intestinal ulcer and infection.” Bodkin was not a long-time resident of the home but, rather, had checked in only a few weeks earlier for a temporary stay while recovering from hip surgery.

The paper reports that the state believes the home did not assess Bodkin’s condition properly, failed to tell his doctor once the symptoms became obvious and ignored warnings from both family members and an occupational therapist “that he was lethargic and in pain.” The nursing home has expressed regret for Bodkin’s death but said in a statement that it does not believe the actions of any of its staff “caused or contributed to this unfortunate event.”

This tragedy is a reminder of how important it is for state governments to supervise nursing homes and for our courts to enforce the rules and regulations government puts in place to protect our seniors. When Oregon nursing home neglect or abuse take place and the people charged with helping our loved ones through their final years fail to perform their jobs, an Oregon nursing home abuse attorney can help families and other loved ones win justice.

Orange County Register: Nursing Home fined in Patient Death

With little public notice this week the House Judiciary Committee in Washington DC sent to the floor a proposed law that, if enacted, will dramatically curtail the right of Oregonians to receive just compensation in medical malpractice lawsuits. As laid out in the official summary of the legislation (click here to read the full summary at the legislative-tracking website Thomas.gov) the so-called Help Efficient, Accessible, Low Cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2011 would shorten the statute of limitations for most medical malpractice cases and make it much more difficult to win punitive damages in an Oregon medical malpractice case. Any defendant who managed to win in court despite these new rules would find that the law also places severe limits on the size of the damages a court can award.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), was first introduced late last month as HR 5 (the Senate version of the legislation, S 218, is sponsored by Nevada Republican John Ensign). It was hustled through the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month and passed out of committee on a voice vote – a stunningly fast timeline for such potentially momentous legislation.

Two of the most telling aspects of HR 5 are clauses that would shield the pharmaceutical and medical device industries from responsibility for their actions while limiting attorney’s fees in medical malpractice and medical wrongful death suits to a level that may discourage many attorneys from taking on such cases.

The sections shielding medical companies would bar the awarding of punitive damages for any claim against a product “approved, cleared or licensed by the Food and Drug Administration” while also making it much harder to sue the doctors and other medical staff themselves. Victims would have to prove that a medical professional had acted with “malicious intent” – a standard that seems designed to be impossible to meet.

Even if someone did manage to convince a court that a doctor was trying to harm the patient (that’s basically what “malicious intent” means) the law would severely limit both the amount the victim could win, and the portion of the award that could go for attorney’s fees. In this respect, the bill seems to be modeled on legislation recently enacted in Texas which, as I wrote last December, has made it difficult for victims to find attorneys economically able to take their cases and defend them against deep-pocketed hospitals and medical companies.

The question going forward is whether we, as Americans, will allow our rights to justice and fair compensation to be taken away so easily?

On its surface it is an Oregon wrongful death story so unbelievable it reads like the plot of a prime time police drama: a man feeling ill and heading for the hospital suffers a heart attack, crashes his car into a wall inside the hospital’s parking structure only steps from the emergency room entrance… then lies there, unconscious, for 20 minutes before anyone notices him. When summoned to the scene, the police attempt to revive him while sending another officer running into the emergency room for help – only to be told that hospital protocol requires the police to call 911 first and then wait for a dispatcher to give a formal order for the hospital’s own ambulance to pick up a patient lying only steps from the emergency room door, according to an account published in The Oregonian.

The heart attack victim, Birgilio Marin-Fuentes eventually made it into the emergency room, but was pronounced dead a short time later. The week since this Oregon hospital death has been marked by finger pointing between the police and the hospital, Portland Adventist, a threat from a U.S. congressman to investigate the hospital and seeming incomprehension throughout the city at how bureaucracy could have gotten so badly in the way of what would seem to be simple common sense.

However this case is eventually resolved on a criminal level, it raises serious questions that may also need to be resolved in civil court, via a Portland wrongful death or Portland medical malpractice lawsuit. Even if there were compelling reasons to adhere to procedures designed to dispatch emergency care across town, rather than across the hospital’s own parking lot, one needs to ask, in turn, why the emergency protocols themselves were so rigid.

Questions like these are best addressed with the help of a Portland wrongful death attorney who specializes in Oregon medical malpractice and personal injury law. A skilled legal specialist can advise families and survivors on the best ways to obtain justice in the wake of what can seem like a particularly senseless tragedy.

The Oregonian: Portland police try to save a life just outside Portland Adventist Medical Center

A newspaper’s detailed account of a teenage girl who suffered brain damage and eventually died because of negligence during what should have been a routine outpatient procedure was presented to Congress last week by patients rights advocates, according to an account in the Sacramento Bee.

The girl suffered brain damage during what should have been a routine procedure at a Los Angeles area hospital operated by UCLA. She never regained consciousness and died shortly after her parents authorized the removal of her respirator. What is truly shocking about this case, however, is the lengthy battle the girl’s parents had to go through just to get the hospital to level with them about what happened – and the difficulties they experienced in finding a medical malpractice attorney willing to take the case because of statutory limits on medical malpractice damages.

Hospitals and doctors claim such limits are necessary to curb frivolous lawsuits. In many states, however, the effect has been to shield the medical industry from accountability for negligence, particularly negligence leading to wrongful deaths here in Oregon and elsewhere around the country. Relatively low damage limits, in particular, can create an incentive for hospitals to stall families and their wrongful death attorneys with the goal of making the case too expensive for a personal injury or medical malpractice lawyer to pursue.

Additionally, the wide variance of medical malpractice law from state to state can make it especially difficult for bereaved families to know where they stand.

For all these reasons it is especially important that families who believe they may have been the victim of medical negligence here in Oregon to contact a Portland medical malpractice attorney at the first possible opportunity. Justice is best served by making the proper enquiries as soon as possible after the damage is done.

Sacramento Bee: Parents assail malpractice caps after daughter’s death at UCLA hospital

A medical journal study released this month offers alarming evidence about the long-term prospects for stroke victims and raises broader questions about the way hospitals treat them. The study, originally published in the medical journal Stroke, and reported on by a number of mainstream media outlets, found that, as summarized by Bloomberg Businessweek: “within a year of having a stroke, almost two-thirds of Medicare patients die or wind up back in the hospital.”

According to Businessweek, the study looked at data covering over 91,000 Medicare patients at 625 hospitals nationwide. It covered the years 2003 to 2006 and found no change in the rates of rehospitalization or death over that period. One caveat, noted by outside experts interviewed by the magazine, is that a study like this – one focusing on older patients – can have a difficult time controlling for other medical issues the patients may be experiencing.

The study uncovered a death rate of 14.1 percent within the first 30 days after a stroke and 31.1 percent within a year. More alarmingly, “61.9 percent of stroke patients were readmitted to hospital or died within a year of their stroke,” Businessweek notes.

The results raise complex questions about wrongful death and medical malpractice both here in Oregon and elsewhere. Does this extraordinarily high rehospitalization rate indicate that the medical profession may not be handling stroke victims – especially those on Medicare – in the best way possible? Is a failure to question ‘standard’ practices leading to worse outcomes form patients?

As the medical profession begins to grapple with these questions the study’s findings are something loved-ones should keep in mind in considering whether a companion or relative has received the best and most appropriate treatment when hospitalized following a stroke. Consulting with a Portland medical malpractice and wrongful death attorney is a key first step toward protecting your family’s rights and ensuring that justice is done following a stroke or other medical tragedy.

Bloomberg Businessweek: Health Risks Rise for Medicare Patients in Year After Stroke

WebMD: Study Gives ‘Striking’ Snapshot of Stroke Prognosis

Resource:
Centers For Disease Control & Prevention – Stroke Information Page

Recent reporting by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer highlights important differences in how Washington and Oregon treat the reporting of medical errors. The article focuses on Washington, where hospitals are required to report their medical errors to state officials. It notes, however, that there are many holes in the system – notably concerning definitional questions. It also adds that such problems can be even worse in the 23 states where the reporting of hospital errors is not required by law.

Oregon, unfortunately, is one of those states. As the Oregon Patient Safety Commission’s website notes, its mission is to “establish a confidential, voluntary serious adverse event reporting system in Oregon.” Because reporting is voluntary, it is difficult to tell whether the 32 deaths from “preventable errors” in 2009 reported by The Oregonian earlier this year represent the sum total of deadly Oregon medical errors, or whether the problem is more serious than indicated by the available data.

In this regard the example of Washington is sobering. According to the Post-Intelligencer, even in a state where the reporting of serious hospital incidents is mandatory loopholes can allow obvious errors to slip through the system. The article I link to below tells the story of a Yakima man who went into the hospital for routine shoulder surgery, suffered brain damage due to nursing errors and died two days later. The newspaper reports that because the victim did not die within 24 hours of the surgery, however, the events were not considered to be related for incident reporting purposes. It took a complaint by the victim’s family for the incident to be formally logged and the hospital to become subject to disciplinary action.

The fact that Oregon’s medical error reporting laws are not as strong as they ought to be should give all of us pause. It also makes it all the more important that families of Oregon medical malpractice victims review their options with the assistance of an Oregon medical malpractice attorney at the first possible opportunity. A Portland lawyer with specialized experience in the field of medical errors can be your most important ally in the struggle to obtain justice in the wake of an Oregon hospital accident.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Despite law, medical errors likely to go unreported

The Oregonian: Preventable errors killed 32 patients in Oregon hospitals last year

RESOURCE:
Oregon Patient Safety Commission

The 2008 death of a 25-year-old woman who was kept waiting at an Oregon hospital for more than six hours has prompted an Oregon wrongful death lawsuit directed against Springfield’s Sacred Heart Medical Center, according to the Associated Press.

The suit was filed by the woman’s parents, a couple from Eugene, who contend that the hospital’s failure to see and treat their daughter in a timely manner contributed to her death two days before Christmas 2008.

According to the AP, the woman, Martha Barr, arrived at the hospital around midday and was initially assessed by hospital staff as suffering from “shortness of breath, anxiety, fatigue, abnormally fast heart and respiration rates and low oxygen saturation.” It was, however, more than six hours before a doctor actually examined her. The doctor reportedly ordered a series of tests, but Barr went into “respiratory and cardiac arrest” before they could be performed and died just over two hours later. AP reports that in the Springfield wrongful death court papers the Eugene parents “contend that a long wait to see an emergency room doctor proved fatal for their daughter.”

Tragedies like the one endured by the Barr family are precisely the sort of events that should lead surviving loved ones to consult with an experienced Oregon personal injury attorney with detailed knowledge of Portland wrongful death and medical malpractice issues. A skilled professional can offer invaluable advice to bereaved family members at these most difficult of times.

AP via MSNBC: Parents in wrongful death lawsuit against hospital

New York Injury News: Springfield Oregon-based hospital named in Wrongful Death Lawsuit

The death last year of a patient at the Oregon State Hospital has led to reprimands for five hospital employees. According to the Salem Statesman-Journal a state official and “hospital leaders” decided that reprimands were a sufficient punishment for the five employees. The legal system, however, has yet to have its final say on this serious situation. Oregon wrongful death and Oregon medical neglect lawsuits remain a possibility.

The reprimands were occasioned by the death last fall of 42 year old Moises Perez. Perez died of coronary artery disease, according to The Oregonian, but “lay in his room across from the nurses station for several hours before his body was discovered.”

The paper reports that three nurses and two aides have now had letters of reprimand placed in their personnel files following an investigation by the OSH’s human resources department. The reprimands are not accompanied by any loss of pay or suspension from work. The Oregonian reports that one of the nurses failed to make monthly nursing summaries on Perez’s chart from June until the patient’s death in October. One of the aides was disciplined for failing to alert nurses when Perez did not “show up to take his 3:30pm medications” on the day of his death. A separate investigation of a doctor, being carried out by a medical board, is still under way.

Patients in a mental hospital are particularly dependent on hospital staff for their care and well-being. The issuance of the reprimands causes one to ask what would have to happen at OSH – and how widely the system might have to fail – for more serious disciplinary action to be meted out to hospital staff?

Beyond the obvious question of whether Perez’s demise constitutes an Oregon wrongful death, it is also essential to consider whether this case also fits the definition of Oregon medical neglect. Such questions involve complex interpretations of law, and are best addressed with the help of a Portland medical neglect lawyer with extensive experience in the laws relating to Oregon wrongful death. Professional sanctions are important but cannot, by themselves, make up for the loss of a loved one through Oregon hospital negligence. An Oregon wrongful death attorney can be a bereaved family’s most important ally when they approach the courts seeking justice in the wake of a tragedy such as this.

The Oregonian: Five Oregon State Hospital employees reprimanded for care to patient Moises Perez, who died last fall

Salem Statesman-Journal: Oregon State Hospital reprimands five in patient’s death

If you arrive in a hospital emergency room unconscious and suffering from an Oregon traumatic brain injury can the doctors use you for a medical experiment without your consent? You might have thought the answer to that question was pretty obvious: absolutely not. According to a recent article in the Portland Tribune, however, you would be wrong.

The Tribune reports that researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, beginning this week, are using a loophole in federal regulations governing medical studies on humans to move ahead with an Oregon brain injury study. Under the so-called “community-wide study exception” the hospital has staged about 20 community meetings to explain its proposed brain injury study and may now presume that any unconscious person brought into the emergency room with an Oregon traumatic brain injury has consented to involvement in the study unless they are wearing a bracelet that declares otherwise, or family members arrive at the ER within one hour of the patient’s admission and refuse to consent to the injured person’s enrollment in the program.

The study in question involves use of progesterone, a hormone that may help severely injured patients recover from brain injuries. It raises, however, a broader question of what ‘informed consent’ ought to mean in the real world. Can an entire community legitimately be said to have agreed to be involved in a study on the basis of a series of public meetings, some of which, according to the paper, were attended by only a handful of people? What about people from elsewhere in Oregon or from out of state who are unlucky enough to be involved in a Portland auto accident and just happen to be taken to OHSU?

This development is particularly troubling for the precedent it sets. Indeed, the Tribune article notes that other studies have been conducted here in Oregon under the “community-wide” exception.

Situations like these are a reminder of the important role a Portland traumatic brain injury attorney can play in protecting your rights when you are unable to speak for yourself. Medical studies are important, but that does not mean a severely injured person’s consent to participate in a serious medical experiment ought to be presumed on the basis of where they live or what hospital first-responders happened to transport them to. An Oregon brain injury lawyer can work with your loved ones to ensure that your wishes are honored – not merely inferred.

Portland Tribune: Brain injury study hopes to overcome ‘consent’ concerns

As a recent report in The Oregonian details, Adventist Medical Center has witnessed a dramatic drop in Portland hospital deaths from bloodstream infections in the three-plus years since it instituted a new set of simple, but effective, safety procedures. The development is obviously good for patients, but it also has implications for Oregon wrongful death and medical malpractice claims related to our state’s hospitals.

The paper explains that in 2006 Adventist began implementing a set of relatively simple procedures developed at Maryland’s Johns Hopkins University. These involve medical professionals carefully checking each other to ensure thorough hand-washing before care-givers have contact with patients, greater attention to the use of antiseptics to clean patients skin and more extensive use of “full surgical regalia”.

As the paper reports, data collected by the state shows a dramatic drop in mortality and infection rates once the new procedures went into effect – especially when compared with other Portland area hospitals that do not follow the Johns Hopkins guidelines. The newspaper, citing Adventist’s director of quality resources, reports that there have been no ICU infections at the hospital since the spring of 2007.

These dramatic results also raise troubling legal questions. If Oregon deaths or debilitating injuries result from infections that could have been easily prevented does this constitute Oregon medical malpractice, particularly if the want of simple sanitary precautions leads to a Portland wrongful death?

The specifics of every case are different. That is why consultation with an experienced Oregon medical malpractice attorney is so crucial if a loved one has died or if you have suffered a serious injury or infection in a Portland-area hospital where the Johns Hopkins procedures were not in place. A Portland wrongful death lawyer can offer valuable advice regarding the legal options that may be open to you, and fight the medical industry to get the justice you deserve.

The Oregonian: Preventing hospital infections: How Portland hospitals compare

Oregon State Police are reopening their investigation into the Salem Hospital Death last week of a patient at the Oregon State Hospital. Moises Perez, 42, was found dead in his bed earlier this month, according to a report in the Salem Statesman-Journal.

A county medical examiner initially ruled that Perez’s Oregon hospital death was from natural causes, but late last week the authorities announced they would be revisiting the issue. “We are going to look at it a little bit more and make sure that we haven’t missed anything,” a state police spokesman told the Statesman-Journal. The spokesman added that the move is “not necessarily that uncommon,” but the paper noted it came only in the wake of pressure from mental health advocates and some hospital patients around the state.

Though Perez was a convicted criminal – he had been confined at the state mental hospital since 1995 when he was convicted of murder but judged insane – the Oregon hospital death raises questions about conditions and treatment that are unrelated to the crimes that had landed Perez in a mental institution. Patient advocates expressed satisfaction with the state’s decision to reopen the case.

Hospital deaths often merit special attention, and are a circumstance in which consultation with a Salem wrongful death lawyer is often a prudent move once a family’s initial period of grieving is past. An Oregon hospital death attorney can help determine whether a tragic Oregon hospital death might also have been avoidable and recommend a course of action for surviving family members.

Salem Statesman-Journal: State hospital death receives second look