Counter suit

Hospital accused of withholding
medical records in a counterclaim
to its lawsuit over web page

DATE: Nov. 11 2011
CONTACT: David Baker
e-mail: dfsbaker@gmail.com

TROY, NY – A counterclaim to a lawsuit in which Samaritan Hospital and its parent company, Northeast Health are trying to block the use of an Internet domain name alleges that the hospital withheld medical records during an earlier lawsuit over the death of a diabetic patient in November 2003.

In its lawsuit, Samaritan Hospital is asking the court to prevent David Baker from using the domain name ‘northeasthealthclaims.com’ for a page which lists medical malpractice lawsuits against Capital District hospitals. Samaritan’s lawsuit against Baker also seeks an unspecified amount of money for what it claims is damage to its reputation.

In the counterclaim filed this week, Baker alleges that the hospital withheld transcripts of a doctor’s dictated reports of his treatment of his wife, Lisa.

Lisa Baker died at the age of 42 in Samaritan Hospital three weeks after she was found in her hospital bed at 2 a.m. with no pulse or respiration and – according to Samaritan’s records – with a blood sugar level near zero.

“This doctor was in charge of Lisa’s diabetes management and was angry that his written orders were ignored,” Baker said. “I want to know what he said in his reports after Lisa was in a coma and on life support.

According to Baker’s counterclaim, a first set of Samaritan’s records on Lisa Baker contained no transcripts of the doctor’s reports, and the hospital’s lawyers suggested that none existed. But a second set of records obtained by Baker contained one transcript of a report by the doctor.

In 2006, Baker said in a post on his blog that he had obtained some additional pages from the hospital record. This prompted the hospital’s lawyers to file a formal demand that Baker give them the new pages.

“Apparently they knew some pages had been withheld but they didn’t know which ones I had.” Baker said. “So they decided to find out by trying to make me give them copies of their clients’ records.”

****